Happy New Year! January is always the perfect moment to Start! a new routine, a new attitude, a new goal, or visit a new place. It is a world of Starts! I hope your new starts turn out amazing and that everything you expected will be done by the end of the year.
My new Start! is sharing my reading list for the month in one great big list. Making a list of what to read through the year has been one of those moments filled with serendipity. Some great books come at you unexpectedly, so I hope I’ll get some books coming at me this year, which I absolutely did not expect. This month, I found two books with the same title, written fifteen years apart. I decided to check them out to discover what serendipity is this ^_^! Here’s my January 2025 reading list.
Deeper than the Dead by Tami Hoag
California, 1985-Four children and young teacher Anne Navarre make a gruesome a partially buried female body, her eyes and mouth glued shut. A serial killer is at large, and the very bonds that hold their idyllic town together are about to be tested.
Tasked with finding the killer, FBI investigator Vince Leone employs a new and controversial FBI technique called “profiling”, which plunges him into the lives of the four children-and the young teacher whose need to uncover the truth is as intense as his own.
But as new victims are found, Vince and Anne find themselves circling the same small group of local suspects, blissfully unaware that someone very near to them is a murderous psychopath…
Deeper than the Dead by Debra Webb
Someone’s found the skeleton in the closet, and it’s not the only one. Wall Street Journal bestselling author Debra Webb presents an emotional new mystery. Crime analyst and newly disgraced deputy police chief Vera Boyett doesn’t visit home often, and she certainly doesn’t venture back into the cave on her family land. But when the remains of her long-missing stepmother are discovered, Vera will have to face a past that threatens all she is.
She and her sister Eve had a fairy-tale childhood: good until it was tragic, with a stepmother they never found a bond with. At least they had each other, a baby half-sister, and a mutual devotion that would have them do the unthinkable. It’s summer in small-town Tennessee, so thick with humidity it could drown you and so rife with secrets it could smother you. And deep beneath the surface, there are more bodies than you’d think…
Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim (Book #1)
A princess in exile, a shapeshifting dragon, six enchanted cranes, and an unspeakable curse…
Shiori’anma, the only princess of Kiata, has a secret. Forbidden magic runs through her veins. Normally she conceals it well, but on the morning of her betrothal ceremony, Shiori loses control. At first, her mistake seems like a stroke of luck, forestalling the wedding she never wanted. But it also catches the attention of Raikama, her stepmother.
A sorceress in her own right, Raikama banishes the young princess, turning her brothers into cranes. She warns Shiori that she must speak of it to no one for with every word that escapes her lips, one of her brothers will die.
Penniless, voiceless, and alone, Shiori searches for her brothers and uncovers a dark conspiracy to seize the throne. Only Shiori can set the kingdom to rights, but to do so she must place her trust in a paper bird, a mercurial dragon, and the very boy she fought so hard not to marry. And she must embrace the magic she’s been taught all her life to forswear–no matter what the cost.
Weaving together elements of The Wild Swans, Cinderella, the legend of Chang E, and the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.
The Dragon’s Promise by Elizabeth Lim (Book #2)
A journey to the kingdom of dragons, a star-crossed love, and a cursed pearl with the power to mend the world or break it…
Princess Shiori made a deathbed promise to return the dragon’s pearl to its rightful owner, but keeping that promise is more dangerous than she ever imagined.
She must journey to the kingdom of dragons, navigate political intrigue among humans and dragons alike, and fend off thieves who covet the pearl for themselves and will go to any lengths to get it, all while cultivating the appearance of a perfect princess to dissuade those who would see her burned at the stake for the magic that runs in her blood.
The pearl itself is no ordinary cargo; it thrums with malevolent power, jumping to Shiori’s aid one minute, and betraying her the next—threatening to shatter her family and sever the thread of fate that binds her to her true love, Takkan. It will take every ounce of strength Shiori can muster to defend the life and the love she’s fought so hard to win.
January is halfway, the heat is high, and the mangoes are still sweet with pepper and salt. Keep reading ^_^
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