Three Books I'm Reading Now, 4/14/25 Edition

The Books I'm Reading Now

I'm listening to Emily Henry's upcoming romance story-within-a-story, Great Big Beautiful Life; I'm listening to the first mystery in a series, The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens; and I'm reading Charlotte McConaghy's haunting and mysterious Wild Dark Shore.

What are you reading, bookworms?

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01 Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Alice Scott is a writer for The Scratch in LA. She's got a sunny disposition, wears bright, cheery colors, and is hoping for her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is from New York, he's won a Pulitzer Prize, and he seems humorless, highly scheduled, and work-obsessed.

They're both currently on Georgia's tiny Little Crescent Island, vying to be the author of the memoir of the reclusive former tabloid darling Margaret Ives. But each has their own distinct and disparate approach, manner, and voice--and they're not sure how they became the two trial candidates for the job of a lifetime.

Their strict NDAs mean they can't talk about their work--but when opposites attract, Henry brings the characters together with warmth and romance in this story within a story.

I received a prepublication audiobook edition of this title, to be published April 22, courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio and Libro.fm.

Henry's Beach Read was one of my favorite books the year I read it, and it made it onto the Greedy Reading List Six Lighter Fiction Stories for Great Escapism.

People We Meet on Vacation was another great Henry story; you can check out my review here, and you might like to check it out on the Greedy Reading List Six More Great Light Fiction Stories. Emily Henry is also the author of Funny Story, Happy Place, and Book Lovers.

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02 The Life We Bury (Joe Talbert #1) by Allen Eskens

In this mystery by Allen Eskens, Joe Talbert is busy trying to build a life apart from his mother, an addict, and his brother, who has autism. He's far from a star college student, but between his job as a bouncer and his dedicated studying, he's learning a lot and getting through.

When he meets the elderly Carl Iverson at a nearby nursing home, he's eager to hear Carl's life story in order to complete a school assignment. But Carl is a convicted murderer who was released because he's so gravely ill and close to death. And his story is introducing more questions than answers for Joe--who is coping with his own personal challenges but can't leave Carl's story alone.

I'm listening to The Life We Bury as an audiobook. This is the first in a series of three books about Joe Talbert.

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03 Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

The description of Charlotte McConaghy's Wild Dark Shore immediately ticked several of my reading-interest boxes--the setting is an isolated island (Antarctica is the closest land mass), the climate is cold (check out these other titles with cold settings), and climate change and shifting weather patterns are bringing matters to a head.

When a mysterious woman washes up half-dead on the remote island of Shearwater, home of the world's largest seed bank and formerly a research hub, she finds only Dominic Salt and his three children manning the lighthouse. With violent storms on the horizon, no line of communication open, and secrets being harbored on both sides, the disjointed group may be the only hope of saving the precious, preserved seeds for the future--if they can trust each other long enough to work together for the good of the world.

Charlotte McConaghy is also the author of Migrations and Once There Were Wolves.