Happy May! I’ve been completely MIA this past week with real life craziness, but I wanted to take some time today to sit back and reflect on my April reads. I had a packed month with a lot of strong novels and several not-so-strong ones … but nothing ended up with less than a 3.5 star rating, so I’m counting it as a great month overall!

What I Read

In April, I read 12 books and 4,168 pages.

I did plan to read 12 books in April back when I threw together my monthly TBR … they just weren’t these 12 books. I ended up not starting Mister Tender’s Girl or Bone Music in favor of first reading Not That I Could Tell and The Wicked Deep. Both were library books I gave priority because of their due dates! I’m still happy with my finished stack, which is a predominantly thrillers as usual, but there’s some YA fantasy and even a horror and historical fiction novel thrown in there. Check out my April reads below; all covers are linked to their Goodreads pages.

My Reviews

Average Rating: 4.04

Let Me Lie — ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Good Samaritan — ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨
Sometimes I Lie — ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨
Screams You Hear — ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Flight Attendant — ⭐⭐⭐✨
The Echo Killing — ⭐⭐⭐⭐🌟
Sirens — ⭐⭐⭐🌟
I Was Anastasia — ⭐⭐⭐✨
Look for Me — ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Daughter of the Siren Queen — ⭐⭐⭐✨
Not That I Could Tell — ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Wicked Deep — ⭐⭐⭐✨

I’m backlogged on reviews right now, but I’ll have them up soon! Have any of these books been on your radar? I’d love to know what you think of them!

Highlight Reads

My absolute favorite reads this month were Look for Me and The Echo Killing.

Look for Me

Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Crime

The home of a family of five is now a crime scene: four of them savagely murdered, one—a sixteen-year-old girl—missing. Was she lucky to have escaped? Or is her absence evidence of something sinister? Detective D. D. Warren is on the case—but so is survivor-turned-avenger Flora Dane. Seeking different types of justice, they must make sense of the clues left behind by a young woman who, whether as victim or suspect, is silently pleading, Look for me.

The Echo Killing

Genre: Mystery,  Crime

A city of antebellum architecture, picturesque parks, and cobblestone streets, Savannah moves at a graceful pace. But for Harper McClain, the timeless beauty and culture that distinguishes her home’s Southern heritage vanishes during the dark and dangerous nights. She wouldn’t have it any other way. Not even finding her mother brutally murdered in their home when she was twelve has made her love Savannah any less.

Her mother’s killer was never found, and that unsolved murder left Harper with an obsession that drove her to become one of the best crime reporters in the state of Georgia. She spends her nights with the police, searching for criminals. Her latest investigation takes her to the scene of a homicide where the details are hauntingly familiar: a young girl being led from the scene by a detective, a female victim naked and stabbed multiple times in the kitchen, and no traces of any evidence pointing towards a suspect.

Harper has seen all of this before in her own life. The similarities between the murder of Marie Whitney and her own mother’s death lead her to believe they’re both victims of the same killer. At last, she has the chance to find the murderer who’s eluded justice for fifteen years and make sure another little girl isn’t forever haunted by a senseless act of violence―even if it puts Harper in the killer’s cross-hairs…

Challenge Check-Ins

Annual Reading Challenge

2018 Reading Goal: 50 books
Read So Far: 41 books

I’m doing so much better than last year where I read 50 the whole year! I love the bookish online community—I’m so motivated to read. This goal is almost certainly going to get bumped up to 100 … you’ll probably see that update next month’s recap if I continue my reading trend of finishing about 10 books per month!

Popsugar Reading Challenge

This year, I’m participating in the Popsugar Reading Challenge. I was able to tackle 1 book that fit reading prompts. Check out my full list in the original challenge post. Not the most impressive showing, but I’m still ahead of schedule!

✅  A novel based on a real person: I Was Anastasia

Total Progress: 18/40

Coming Up Next …

Tune in later this week for my May reading plans!

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