My SPOILER ALERT Book Reviews!

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Not Quite Dead Yet — Solving Your Own Murder With One Week Left (4/5 ⭐) Author: Holly Jackson Genre: Adult Mystery Thriller Published: 2025 Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4 out of 5) ⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS Graphic violence Terminal illness / death Child death Suicide (discussed) Substance use Arson Gun violence Family trauma Police detention 🚨 FULL SPOILER WARNING 🚨 This review contains FULL AND COMPLETE SPOILERS , including the ending . If you want to go in blind, bookmark this and come back later. 🧠🔪 🧠 Premise: A Week to Live, One Murder to Solve Not Quite Dead Yet is Holly Jackson’s first adult novel , and honestly? The premise absolutely slaps . Jet Mason (I’ll say it: I hate the name Jet ) is brutally attacked in her own home. She doesn’t die immediately — instead, she’s told she has less than seven days to live due to a traumatic brain injury. Surgery might save her… or kill her faster. So what does Jet decide to do with her final days? Nat...

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Calder Grit — Marriage of Convenience, Montana Grit, and One Very Unwanted Brother (4 out of 5 ⭐) Author: Janet Dailey Series: Calder (Book 2, follows Calder Brand ) Genre: Western Historical Romance / Frontier Drama Setting: Blue Moon, Montana, 1909 ⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS Sexual assault / attempted rape Teen pregnancy Child death Violence & vigilante justice Hanging Blizzards & exposure Medical trauma Misogyny & social stigma Class conflict (ranchers vs. homesteaders) 🚨 SPOILER WARNING 🚨 This review contains FULL AND COMPLETE SPOILERS , including the ending. If you want to remain pure of plot knowledge, turn back now, partner 🤠 🌾 Overview: The Western I Didn’t Expect to Love Let me be honest: I never actively crave westerns . I don’t wake up thinking, You know what I need today? Cattle, blizzards, and moral integrity forged in hardship. BUT — once I start one? I’m in. Every time. This series is officially doing that to me. Calder ...

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Calder Brand — Revenge, Love, and the Long Road Home (4 out of 5 ⭐) Author: Calder Brand by Janet Dailey Genre: Historical Romance / Western Fiction Published: 2021 ⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS Violence & gunshots Death (including parents and spouses) Cattle stampede Infidelity Unwed pregnancy Alcoholism Prejudice & social stigma Child endangerment Revenge-driven violence 🚨 SPOILER WARNING 🚨 This review contains FULL AND COMPLETE SPOILERS , including the ending. Proceed accordingly, cowboy 🤠 🐎 Overview: Do You Need to Read the Calder Saga First? Short answer: nope . Calder Brand is technically a spinoff of the Calder Saga, but it reads perfectly well as a standalone. I haven’t read the original series, and I never felt lost. The book gives you everything you need — context, history, and plenty of emotional damage — right on the page. One small curiosity: this book is published as written by Janet Dailey in 2021 , even though Daile...

⭐⭐⭐ First Time, Long Time — A Very Slow, Very Awkward Love Triangle (3 Stars) Author: Amy Silverberg Genre: Literary Fiction / Contemporary Fiction Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3 out of 5) ⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS ⚠️ Age-gap relationship Incest-adjacent dynamics (father/daughter romantic overlap) Infidelity Grief & death of a sibling Emotional manipulation Sexual content Mental health struggles 🚨 SPOILER WARNING 🚨 This review contains FULL AND COMPLETE SPOILERS , including the ending. Proceed accordingly or turn back now. 👀 📚 What Is First Time, Long Time About? First Time, Long Time by Amy Silverberg follows Allison Cohen , a Los Angeles adjunct professor, book club facilitator, and horoscope writer who drifts through life being everyone’s emotional sponge while quietly unraveling herself. When Allison meets Reid Steinman , a legendary radio DJ and her father’s literal hero, they begin an age-gap relationship that’s messy, intense, and… unsettling. Thi...

⭐ 0.5/5 Stars — Shadow Cell : When Spycraft Becomes Self-Fanfiction ⭐ Author: Andrew Bustamante & Jihi Bustamante Genre: Nonfiction / Espionage Memoir / Intelligence Rating: ⭐ 0.5 out of 5 (and I was feeling generous) ⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS Espionage & intelligence operations Paranoia Interrogation & detention Institutional politics Extreme ego inflation Secondhand embarrassment 🚨 SPOILER WARNING 🚨 This review contains FULL SPOILERS , including the ending. If you want to believe this book is real-life Jason Bourne … maybe stop here. 😬 📚 What This Book Claims to Be Shadow Cell is marketed as a groundbreaking, insider account of modern CIA operations, written by husband-and-wife operatives Andrew Bustamante and Jihi Bustamante . We’re promised: A CIA mole A hostile foreign power (“ Falcon ”) A revolutionary intelligence model And a daring couple who saved the day What we get instead is a memoir that reads like spy-themed ...

⭐⭐⭐⭐ An Academic Affair by Jodi McAlister — A Fake Marriage, Real Feelings, and Academia at Its Most Cutthroat Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4 out of 5 stars) Let me say this up front: this book is dangerously charming. The kind of soft, slow-burn romance that sneaks past your defenses and suddenly has you rooting for two emotionally repressed academics like it’s your full-time job. 📚💔➡️❤️ Somehow, An Academic Affair managed to soften even my cold, jaded heart — and that is saying something. ⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS Workplace harassment Academic precarity / job insecurity Toxic parents Emotional neglect Sibling conflict Institutional sexism 🚨 SPOILER WARNING 🚨 This review contains FULL SPOILERS , including the ending. If you want to go in blind, bookmark this and come back later. Everyone else? Welcome to Hobart. ☕📖 💘 Enemies-to-Lovers + Fake Marriage = Academic Perfection At its core, An Academic Affair is an enemies-to-lovers , fake marriage romance — and yes,...