A Spindle Splintered Fractured Fables #1 Alix E. Harrow

 

I listened to the audio book of this fun to read feminist fractured fairy tale.  On Zinnia's 21st birthday, she pricks her finger on a spinning wheel and is pulled into another reality in the multiverse where a beautiful princess is trying to avoid both her sleeping beauty curse and the prince.  Can Zinnia help the princess and escape her own curse - an environmentally caused genetic disorder that has her time counting down to near zero now?   This is a totally fantastic story and I highly recommend it!

Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

 

Do you ever feel bereft after finishing a book because it's over?  That is how I feel after reading this book.  The story is intense and I listened to the audio book in two days.  The story is told by 4 characters over two timelines - the present, and eleven years before when two women and a child went missing.  Eleven years ago, a woman named Shelby went missing, followed by Meredith and her 6 year old daughter, Delilah.  Eleven years later, Delilah shows up. Meredith, her son Leo, Delilah, and their next door neighbor Kate take turns telling parts of the story as it goes back and forth between the present and eleven years ago.  The plot twists and turns and goes in unexpected and unusual ways.   

Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Jessica Arden

 

In this cute paranormal cozy mystery, Paige makes a wish and an app appears on her phone which allows her to investigate the murders of ghosts, who she can now see.  Her hedgehog also talks to her and the first murder victim she chooses is one whose murder is blamed on a friend of hers.  Of course, she must clear her friend's name and solve the  mystery!  The story is fun to read, with some romance included as well. 

The Orphan Witch by Paige Crutcher

 

Paige has been on the move her entire life.  From her early childhood when she was shuttled from foster home to foster home and into her adulthood, now at age 32, she has never been able to settle down anywhere due to powers she cannot control and does not understand.  When she accepts an invitation from a woman who has befriended her to go for a visit, she finds family, mystery, magic, and romance. 

The Peculiarities by David Liss

 

In London in 1899, Thomas has been ripped from his carefree life and forced to work in the family bank as a cleric after his father passed away.  As prominent people in London study mysticism, strange things are happening called peculiarities.  Women are giving birth to litters of rabbits, the fog is acting strange, children have lobster claws for hands and Thomas has his own problem.  Thomas's older brother, Walter, is forcing him to marry a woman in order to help the bank, and Thomas decides to find out what is really going on. This is a fun and different story.

The Bookbinder's Daughter by Jessica Thorne

 

With magical realism similar to books by Alice Hoffman and Erin Morgenstern, the story of Sophie, a bookbinder who can't remember her past due to a traumatic experience, is brought  back to her childhood home, the Ayredale Library, home of a fine book collection.  When she arrives, the mysteries of her past and her lost memories begin to resurface.  She is drawn to Will, her childhood best friend and boyfriend, and tries to understand the magic in the library that surrounds her. Magic, mystery, intrigue and love abound in this story. 

An Ordinary Wonder by Buki Papillon

 

Wow!  This book is so totally awesome!  First of all, I listened to the audio book and the narrator is amazing.  The story is of an intersex teenager who grew up in Nigeria with a mother who thought she was an abomination, and had raised her as a boy along with her twin sister.  Her father had abandoned them because Oto was imperfect and wrong.  But Oto works hard and he manages to get himself into a private school where he can be away from his mother and he is able to learn about what he- actually she - really is and it is just an amazing story.