What I've Read & Reviewed Beginning September 2025

 This is a list of what I have read and reviewed most recently. Click on the title if you want to view what I thought of any of these books.  Please keep in mind that starting with this list all books will have spoilers as I am writing these posts for my own recall.  Links to my previous lists of reviews are at the bottom of this post. 

Let the list begin:

• "The Heiress"  by Rachel Hawkins
  narrated by Dan Bittner, Eliza Foss, John Pirhalla, and Patti Murin

I have three past lists of my write-ups: 

What I've read & reviewed from 2019 to 2022 are here.

What I've read & reviewed from 2013 to 2016 are here.

What I've read & reviewed prior to 2013 are here.  

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins

 

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins
Read by Dan Bittner, Eliza Foss, John Pirhalla, and Patti Murin 

The Heiress is a story about an old rich family and the rumors that surround them and their descendants. Old & Rich - think Vanderbilts and the Biltmore, as this story places the McTavish's as their neighbors. 

The story centers around Ruby, who disappeared in the woods as a toddler. Fortunately she is returned to the family after being taken by a common man to ease his wife's suffering by replacing their baby that had died. 

After this famously notorious kidnapping Ruby grows up in the public eye creating her own notoriety. She marries four times and is four times widowed. She adopts a child to raise as her own and be her heir. The details of these things are revealed to us in a series of mysterious letters written to some unknown person. 

In the current day Cam, Ruby's son, is married to Jules. They live in Colorado, far away from the estate & riches that Cam has inherited and turned his back on. He is a teacher and she works as a character on historical farm. They soon are on their way North Carolina to deal with the estate and a death in the family of Ruby's sister, Nel. Although Ruby inherited the family fortune and then passed it on to her son, her will allowed for Nel to remain living on the estate until her death. 

This is a twisty turny novel, but not in a surprising way. We know things are coming and will be revealed in time. 

Is Ruby really the child who was stolen? 

What secret is Jules hiding? 

Why did Ruby really adopt Cam?  

Who were the letters written to?

Is Cam really who we think he is? 

I enjoyed the way the story was written and for once did not guess all the twists.  That could be my age, or it could be that I don't pick up as much listening as the book moves along and my brain doesn't do it's undercover work quickly enough. Or perhaps the author was just that good.  Read it and you decide. 

I give this novel 4 of 5 shots. 

****SPOILER ALERT****

The rest of this blog is for me to recall what the twists & turns are about when I can't remember what this book is about. 

Ruby is indeed NOT the child who was kidnapped.  She was from a poor family, the Darnells, who's father tried to pass her off as Ruby. He made a deal with Ruby's father which soon lead to his death. Ruby's real identity was a secret held tightly in the senior McTavish's hands.  

Ruby did indeed kill each of her four husbands. The first on their honeymoon in Paris as he had already begun to beat her. She electrocuted one and poisoned another. She may have drowned one, but I don't quite remember. 

Cam was adopted when Ruby needed to have some one to leave the McTavish fortune to. She did not want it to go to her sister who she despised. It seems that everyone in this family hated everyone else. Although Ruby loved Cam she wasn't much of a mother and did everything to control him. That is what finally lead to him leaving the estate and moving to Colorado. Ruby made sure his jobs in NC lasted no longer than a day. As he prepared to leave he went to visit Ruby. She knew he was coming and took a load of pills to test his loyalty to her, believing he would not let her die. But he did. Then he left the McTavish's and moved to California where he met Jules. They later married and moved to Colorado. Jules was aware that he wanted nothing to do with the McTavishes or the money. 

It turns out Jules (not her real name) was a Darnell. So she is a blood relative of Ruby. By this time although Ruby is dead, she died knowing she was a Darnell. Jules had been in contact with Ruby making a deal to meet Cam but not letting him know she knew who he was or anything about him. Ruby's letters had actually been written to Jules who wanted insurance against Ruby turning on her.  

Ruby's letters detailed her four marriages and how she killed each husband. 

Nel and her children confront Cam with the fact that Ruby was not born and McTavish and was never the child who was kidnapped.  Ruby knew that long ago from a DNA test and Cam knew as well. There was no surprise in the attach by his Aunt's family and their attempt to oust him from the family was a fail. Cam had already had the Ruby's will closely scrutinized when he learned and he was safe from their attempts. 

Craziness follows and Ben (Cam's cousin? Nel's son?) kills Nel in her sleep that night. Jules packs their things the next morning after she & Cam decide to just get away and leave it all. He leaves the house for a while and Jules goes to the Ruby's old office to find a letter she had written Ruby long ago, trying to blackmail her. (Which is how they became co-conspirators in trying to manipulate Cam.) Ben has the letter and after arguing Jules grabs it from him and turns to leave. Ben hits her with a paper weight and she grabs a fire poker and kills him. She sets the house on fire. The fire also kills another cousin who no one knew was sleeping. 

Now everything is Cam's with no living McTavish relatives. 

Cam and Jules are still married and expecting a child. Jules understands Ruby's manipulation of Cam and herself. Cam had at some point had a PI investigate Jules and already knew who she really was. She and Cam had truly fallen in love long before they returned to NC and had been married 10 years already. Cam was always a kind and sensitive person. Maybe letting Ruby die was the exception, but she took the pills before he was even in the house. 

Posted without much editing. 

I'm Back!

 I am indeed back after a three year hiatus, but specifically for myself. I doubt anyone will even find this blog and/or follow it again. But I'm writing just for myself now. 

Does that sound self absorbed? Well, just in case you have found my blog again, I'll tell you why it's now all for myself.

I love books and stories and being entertained. But I was finding myself reading less and less because I am easily distracted (and a slooooow reader). Then I was introduced to Libby and discovered that I could listen to audio books free(!) without having to run to the library or have a CD player available to change out discs as I listen. It was a game changer for me. I do a lot of crafting and I can listen to books for long periods of time. Wow, awesome right?  It does have its drawbacks, one is not wanting to go to bed when I have only two hours left in the book.  Not good. 

Let me show you how audio has changed my reading stats: 

Quite the difference, right? I'll list my 2025 books toward the end of this post. 

Now, why am I blogging again?  Because I can't remember what books I've read and reading the synopsis is not enough to trigger my memory. So I'm going to blog about the story and include all the spoilers because this is what I need.  Just in case anyone does stumble upon my blog again I will keep SPOILER ALERTS posted. 

What I've read so far in 2025: 

Holly by Stephen King

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

Good Riddance by Elinor Lipman

You Like it Darker by Stephen King

Fairy Tale by Stephen King

Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson

The Five Year Lie by Sarina Bowen 

A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston 

Legacy by Nora Roberts

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead by Elle Cosimano

Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun by Elle Cosimano

Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice by Elle Cosimano

Open and Shut by David Rosenfelt

First Degree by David Rosenfelt

Bury the Lead by David Rosenfelt

Sudden Death by David Rosenfelt

Dead Center by David Rosenfelt

Play Dead by David Rosenfelt

New Tricks by David Rosenfelt

Dog Tags by David Rosenfelt

One Dog Night by David Rosenfelt

Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green 

Leader of the Pack by David Rosenfelt

Unleashed by David Rosenfelt

Hounded by David Rosenfelt

Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

Blindness by Jose Saramago 

Recursion by Blake Crouch 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave by Elle Cosimano 

Veronica Ruiz Breaks the Bank by Elle Cosimano

The Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner

Dear Eliza by Andrea J Stein 

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller

In Gad We Trust: A Tell-Some by Josh Gad

We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

Elsewhere by Alexis Schaitkin

The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell 

The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club by Gloria Chao

The Woman Who Met Herself by Laura Pearson

Heading out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick

How to Read a Book by Monica Wood

Colony One Mars by Gerald M Kilby

Colony Two Mars by Gerald M Kilby

Colony Three Mars by Gerald M Kilby

The Life List by Lori Nelson Spielman

The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick

The Breakaway by Jennifer Weiner

The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner

Off Season by Jennifer Weiner

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

That Summer by Jennifer Weiner

Fortune's Daughter by Alice Hoffman

The Half Life by Jennifer Weiner

A River of Crows by Shanessa Gluhm

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Exley by Brock Clarke

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry 

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins 

Books read (68)

Whew!  

It's sad that I remember so little about these stories, all that I've listened to since January. I am hopeful that by writing about them as I move from one story to the next, that the exercise of writing will also help the stories stay with me. 

First up: The Heiress.