My Quarantine Reading List

Because there's finally time to tackle that mile high pile of books...

Welcome back everyone! It's time for more quarantine book reviews!

So I've been working since July (yay!), which means my reading time has been cut in half. However, I've been able to get some fabulous reads in, mostly because my dad has waaaaay too much free time and keeps sending me book (insert another yay!).

Anywho, here are more books you could read in your free time. Also, say tuned for the first draft conclusion of the Brooklyn Pieper story, an update on Lesley Hawkey/Heston Snow and a post about reading as an aspiring writer!

Sometime in July/August

Ok, so I admit, I haven't been the greatest at tracking my books lately. Aka, I have no idea when I started and when I finished them. I can tell you this though: I read a wide variety of genres to close out summer. Literally. Started the month with a rom-com, transitioned to a typical crime novel and then ended with the BANG of true crime. There was a smattering of other books in those weeks, but at least you get a sense of my headspace to end the summer.

Quarantine book ?: "The Hating Game", Sally Thorne (finished three days after I started)

Grade: A-/B+ (🐳🐳🐳🐳/5)

Recommended by: Amazon

Synopsis (From GoodReads): Nemesis (n.) 1) An opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome.

2) A person’s undoing

3) Joshua Templeman

Lucy Hutton has always been certain that the nice girl can get the corner office. She’s charming and accommodating and prides herself on being loved by everyone at Bexley & Gamin. Everyone except for coldly efficient, impeccably attired, physically intimidating Joshua Templeman. And the feeling is mutual.

Trapped in a shared office together 40 (OK, 50 or 60) hours a week, they’ve become entrenched in an addictive, ridiculous never-ending game of one-upmanship. There’s the Staring Game. The Mirror Game. The HR Game. Lucy can’t let Joshua beat her at anything—especially when a huge new promotion goes up for the taking.

If Lucy wins this game, she’ll be Joshua’s boss. If she loses, she’ll resign. So why is she suddenly having steamy dreams about Joshua, and dressing for work like she’s got a hot date? After a perfectly innocent elevator ride ends with an earth-shattering kiss, Lucy starts to wonder whether she’s got Joshua Templeman all wrong.

Maybe Lucy Hutton doesn’t hate Joshua Templeman. And maybe, he doesn’t hate her either. Or maybe this is just another game.

Review: Let me let you in on a little secret: my guilty pleasure genre is this book. It's classic Hallmark movies. It's guy hates girl, girl hates guy and WHABAM! Their hate for each other festers into dramatic sexual tension that results in: SURPRISE! A romance!

It's not the next great American novel by any means, and the ending was not my favorite in the world, BUT it is what it is. A delightful, jolly story of workplace hatred that ends in romance. It made me smile at a time when not much could, so thank you Sally Thorne for a wonderful book and distraction from the Holy Hell that is 2020 and my life.

Quarantine book I have no idea: "Cajun Justice" by James Patterson

Grade: B (🐳🐳🐳/5)

Gifted to me by my father.

Synopsis (From GoodReads): The Bayou is a unique place to live and it provides a grit and passion to any who hail from it, including Cain Lemaire, an ex-Secret Service agent from New Orleans. Cain had the dream job he had always wanted, protecting the President, until a single night resulted in a scandal that lost him his post.

Needing a new direction for his life and with help from his sister who works in Japan, Cain takes a job in Tokyo as head of security detail for a very successful and important CEO. What he thought was a simple security post unravels a tangled web of corruption, greed, and extortion, but now Cain is on his own and without the wealth of resources he had with the Secret Service. Years of training and international missions kick in as he races to find justice that only way a born and raised Cajun can do.

Review: Things K. P. Whaley loves: Food, specifically cajun food and New Orleans, especially books that involve New Orleans/Louisiana somehow. Because of this, I read several books written by the great James Patterson involving New Orleans, food, Louisiana and members of law enforcement. This was the first book in said kick, and I must say, it was good. Yes, it was slightly disappointing by the fact that it only featured Louisiana for .2 seconds (spoiler), but overall I enjoyed the story. I thought the authors did a spectacular job of incorporating two vastly different cultures, Japanese and American-Cajun, the book without making it seem rigid or forced. Some scenes were a bit fantastical and not entirely realistic, but overall I enjoyed it. Definitely did not want to throw it against a wall (we will get to that book later).