There's something about mysteries that take place in secluded locations, I just can't resist.

Guests are checking into a small lodge in the middle of nowhere, looking forward to a romantic and relaxing time. Alas, a winter storm blows through, knocking out power and contact with the outside world. One person dies by what seems to be accidental means, but when a second person dies, it's clear something sinister is afoot. Is it one of the guests, or is there an unknown, mysterious interloper on the loose?

This was a bit of a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I found the premise and initial setup thoroughly intriguing. Just like the best Golden Age mysteries, there is a limited set of suspects, and everyone is acting questionable and hiding something. In fact, the cover of the book compares this to Agatha Christie, which is high aspiration indeed.

But unfortunately, after the great start, the mystery didn't really come together the way I was expecting. What's amazing about Agatha Christie is that all the clues are there, and when it's explained in the end, you feel like you could have figured it all out if only you'd been a little bit more clever. But with this story, there were no clues for me to put together and solve, and the reasons became known only when the book chose to reveal it. That takes a lot of the fun out of the mystery, at least for me.

Another letdown is that the characters act all panicked and wacky, which leads to more drama than is necessary. I've noticed that this is a trend of modern mysteries, where instead of offering great clues and red herrings, a lot of them just have characters acting crazy as the element that propels the story along. In fact, there were a few weirdly emotional characters who I was hoping would get murdered to be rid of their annoying presence.

Still, if you don't go in expecting a mystery with actual clues, then this is an adequate one. The setting is atmospheric, the premise is interesting, and the unfolding of the plot is engrossing enough. I'm glad I picked it up, even if the mystery didn't quite live up to its potential.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

Adversity presents itself in many forms . . . if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.

Every once in a while, I come across a book that speaks to the heart of who I am, as though it's been written specifically for me. That's how I feel about A Gentleman in Moscow.

Count Rostov has been sentenced to house arrest in the grand Metropol Hotel in Moscow. We follow him as he tries to make a life of purpose for himself within this small world. Instead of withdrawing and giving in to misery in the face of diminishing circumstances, he makes the most of his situation. He reaches out, opens his heart, and lets in all that life has to offer inside the hotel.

This story was an absolute joy to read! It's buoyant, charming, and so funny. There were many insightful passages into the human soul and the comedy that comes with trying to find life's meaning. This is the rare sort of book that I want to read slowly and savor every word. Often, I found myself marveling at what I had just read, and I have to reread and relish it again it before I could move on.

Even though this book is quite long, I blew through it. It didn't drag on or feel boring to me at all. I connected with it from the very beginning and knew early on that this would be a book I'd love. If you've been on the fence about whether to read this, especially given its longer length, give it a try. I think you'll be able to tell within the first few chapters if this is for you.

This brilliant gem of a book is so deserving of all the accolades it has received. Its exploration of human behavior and our never-ending drive to find happiness and purpose, no matter the circumstances, is so uplifting and enchanting. The best books steal a part of our hearts and remain with us long after they are read, and so this will be for me. I only wish I had discovered it that much sooner.

Readaroo Rating: 5 stars!

Overall, I do like My Favorite Half-Night Stand. It was a fun and enjoyable romantic comedy with a great cast of supporting characters, as well as a likable male lead. For me, what kept it from being great instead of just good is that I didn't really connect with Millie. She comes off as both standoffish and needy. She runs away from communication and honesty, even though I do understand that that functions as the main conflict (without which there would be no story). But what really seems cruel and unforgivable is that she catfished Reid, her supposed best friend/lover.

Romances are so personal. What speaks to one person doesn't always speak to another. A lot for me depends on how much I can relate to the main characters, and with this story, Millie was just a little too much of a villain for me to really buy into the Millie/Reid love story. The catfishing aside, I found the rest of the story to be entertaining and the other characters to be lovable. This was my first book by Christina Lauren, and I'll definitely give this duo's other books a try.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

You Think It, I'll Say It is a collection of short stories, mostly centered around middle-aged people who were unhappy with their lives and feel their prime is past them. I found the writing to be compelling, but I didn't really understand the point of most of the stories.

They seem to center around people who were nostalgic for their youth, or who'd grown bitter and regretful, or who were envious of others. Sure, it was uncomfortable to read about these things, and it made me feel pity and sadness for the characters. But in the end, I'm not sure what I was supposed to get out of them. Since these are short stories, I wonder if they were longer and more fleshed out, I would like them better.

Since I found Sittenfeld's writing to be engaging, I won't rule out reading her other books. But I'll probably steer away from more of her short stories.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

When is an exploration of how timing effects everything we do and achieve. Some things covered in this book include the afternoon slump, how starting your career during a recession affects your lifetime earnings, and how working together with others in a cohesive environment produces more positive results than working alone.

This book contains some interesting tidbits, but for me, most of it falls under the category of common sense. Therefore, I didn't feel its points were particularly revolutionary or insightful. The book also feels like a collection of separate ideas, tied together under the common umbrella of time, but they didn't really congeal into a whole. Because of that, some of the conclusions feel forced, as if the author had to stretch hard so that they fit into the concept of time.

In the end, this book was a bit of a disappointment for me. It didn't contain enough original or compelling ideas. As a result, I don't feel I got anything new out of this book that I didn't already intuit myself or have read elsewhere.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

Even when Jane Harper writes a story I don't quite connect with (trekking through the wilderness with co-workers *shudders*), I still end up enjoying it.

Five women go on a corporate retreat into the wilderness, but only four return. The missing woman, Alice, had been helping federal agent Falk with a financial investigation into her company and was on the verge of bringing him crucial incriminating evidence. So what really happened at the retreat that caused everything to go horribly awry?

For me, I just didn't find the topic of this book to be as interesting as Harper's other books. Through alternating chapters, we follow both the current investigation as well as the actual wilderness excursion that led to Alice's disappearance. I found the chapters on the investigation to be riveting, but the wilderness ones to be rather boring. Since I'm not someone who goes camping or does outdoorsy stuff, I had trouble getting into so much traipsing through the woods. And at least initially, there were many more pages of the wilderness narrative than of the investigation. It wasn't until about two-thirds of the way into it that the story started to pick up for me.

I do find, for a mystery, that it's a little deflating to rely so heavily on telling what really happened instead of using the unfolding investigation to drive the explanation. As a result, I found Falk's eventual solving of the mystery to be a little weak, really more of a lucky guess than truly fitting all the clues into the puzzle. But that subterfuge is not as apparent to the reader since we were able to delve into the minds of everyone, so all the pieces do make sense and fit together for us.

Still, Harper is an amazing writer. Her characters always feel interesting and fleshed out. I particularly enjoyed getting to know Carmen, Falk's partner, in this story. And even though the topic of this book is a little bland to me, Harper's writing isn't. It's compelling and atmospheric, dropping you right in the middle of the narrative so that you are inhabiting that world rather than looking in on it.

I'm glad I picked up this book even though I didn't enjoy it quite as much as Harper's other ones. There's a reason she's one of my favorite authors. Really, I'll read anything she writes.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

Wait... what did I just read? I'm so confused, and I'm pretty sure this isn't possible, not to mention really strange, weird, and revolting. It doesn't make any sense. My mind is blown, but in a bad way.

So the story in I Know Who You Are is that Aimee is an actress who comes home one day to find her husband missing. She reports him missing to the police, but as evidence starts to come to light, they become suspicious of her. In alternating chapters, we also discover what happened to Aimee as a child.

The premise of the story is interesting enough, but I think it didn't pay off this time. Feeney had the craziest twists and turns in her previous book Sometimes I Lie, but they worked in that story and made sense. Unfortunately, that isn't the case this time. When the big reveal happens in the end, I was just baffled. My mouth was hanging open, not from a happy shock, but from confusion.

Also, there is a lot of filler in this book to fluff out the pages. We are treated to so much random musings from Aimee about how she hard she has to work, how she has to lie to protect herself, how she lacks confidence, how she has to stay strong, ya da ya da. And the things she does and the lies she tells make her look terribly suspicious to the police, all for no reason.

I appreciate the author trying hard to shock readers in interesting ways, but it just didn't work this time.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars