My March TBR and Some Exciting News!

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Happy March, my friends! How is your month going? Are you off to a good start? We have just returned home from vacation and I am trying to organize my bookish goals this month. As a mood reader I don’t usually create a TBR…because if we are being honest…I never know where my mood is going to lead me! This month I have decided to create a bit of a looooose TBR. I have so many books that I want to read that I am hoping that this will help me stay a little more focused! So, let’s take a peek at what I am hoping to read this month! I also have some exciting news! Are you ready? Let’s chat!

Exciting News

Before we jump into my March TBR I thought I would share some exciting news with you! Beaches and Reads has been selected as one of the Top 20 Florida Book Blogs on the web by Feedspot! I cannot even begin to tell you how thrilled I was to hear this news! I started this blog 5+ years ago as a way to share my love of books and beaches, so to have my blog listed on Feedspot’s site just made my entire month! There are so many amazing blogs and bloggers on the list and I am honored to be a part of it! You can find the list here…I hope you can find lots of amazing book bloggers to follow! Thank you to Feedspot for including me!

My March TBR

Let’s talk books! I am so behind on my reading goal for the year. Do you set a reading goal? I set one this year for 125 books and I started off with a bang. Well…I hit a slump and then went on vacation…so needless to say…I am super behind. With that said however, I just started March with a super addicting read so I am hoping that the slump is behind me! So, for March I have chosen 6 books to add to my TBR. A couple of these books are books for reviews and a couple are just books that I am dying to read! Here we go!

Happily Never After by Lynn Painter

I am going to start this off with the book I am currently reading! I am nearly done with Happily Never After by Lynn Painter and I am loving it. It is an adorable little Rom-Com with fantastic chemistry, quick chapters, and such a fun concept. I have never read any of Lynn Painter’s books before but when I saw this one on Book of the Month’s site this month I knew I had to grab it. The cover was super adorable and the concept is so fun and unique. (If you are new to BOTM and want to give it a try you can click one of the referral links above and get your first book for $5!) You can read more about Happily Never After below!

Goodreads Synopsis

Their name? The objectors.

Their job? To break off weddings as hired.

Their dilemma? They might just be in love with each other.

When Sophie Steinbeck finds out just before her nuptials that her fiancé has cheated yet again, she desperately wants to call it off. But because her future father-in-law is her dad’s cutthroat boss, she doesn’t want to be the one to do it. Her savior comes in the form of a professional objector, whose purpose is to show up at weddings and proclaim the words no couple (usually) wants to hear at their ceremony: “I object!”

During anti-wedding festivities that night, Sophie learns more about Max the Objector’s job. It makes perfect sense to her: he saves people from wasting their lives, from hurting each other. He’s a modern-day hero. And Sophie wants in.

The two love cynics start working together, going from wedding to wedding, and Sophie’s having more fun than she’s had in ages. She looks forward to every nerve-racking ceremony saving the lovesick souls of the betrothed masses. As Sophie and Max spend more time together, however, they realize that their physical chemistry is off the charts, leading them to dabble in a little hookup session or two—but it’s totally fine, because they definitely do not have feelings for each other. Love doesn’t exist, after all.

And then everything changes. A groom-to-be hires Sophie to object, but his fiancée is the woman who broke Max’s heart. As Max wrestles with whether he can be a party to his ex’s getting hurt, Sophie grapples with the sudden realization that she may have fallen hard for her partner in crime.

The Baker’s Man by Jennifer Moorman

Next up we have The Baker’s Man by Jennifer Moorman. I adore Magical Realism. It is easily my favorite genre to read. Last year I had the pleasure of reading Jennifer Moorman’s newest book, The Magic All Around, and absolutely fell in love with her writing. So I then went on a deep dive to find as many of her books as I can…like ya do. Well, the first one I ordered was The Baker’s Man and I am so excited to jump back into her gorgeous and magical writing. Her writing exudes southern charm! She also has such beautiful covers for her books…isn’t it lovely? Here is a synopsis!

Goodreads Synopsis

This enchanting and whimsical tale of friendship, love, and the power of baking dreams into life will open readers’ eyes to the magic all around them.

New York City–trained pastry chef Anna O’Brien inherited her grandma Bea’s small-town Southern bakery—situated between the seventy-five-year-old hardware store and the newly opened clothing boutique on Main Street—along with its unusual, life-changing recipes two years ago. And while Anna has adjusted to small-town life with the support of her two best friends, Lily and Tessa, she’s also smothered her own dreams in order to keep the family legacy intact.

When she tries out a recipe left behind by her grandmother—“how to create the perfect man”—a gorgeous stranger suddenly appears. Soon Anna is living in a world where she must deal with the repercussions of Elijah’s unexpected existence. Amid the inevitable chaos, she realizes that listening to her own voice is the most important ingredient of all.

Forgetting to Remember by M.J.Rose

Next we have Forgetting to Remember by M.J. Rose. This is a review book that I will be sharing in a week or so, so it will likely be my next read. Last year I had the opportunity to read The Jeweler of Stolen Dreams which is also by M.J. Rose and I really enjoyed it! So I jumped at the chance to review another of her books. This one promises to be just as full of mystery, history, and love as The Jeweler of Stolen Dreams so I can’t wait to get started. Here is more info!

Goodreads Synopsis

Discover a spellbinding love story in this dazzling time-travel adventure from the NYT bestselling author of The Last Tiara, M.J. Rose.

Setting aside grief from the fallout of the second World War and putting her energy into curating an upcoming show critical to her career as the Keeper of the Metalworks at London’s renowned Victoria and Albert Museum, Jeannine Maycroft stumbles upon a unique collection of jewel-framed miniature eye portraits—a brilliant romantic device and clandestine love token of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

One piece among the assembly intrigues her more than all the a twilight-blue man’s eye framed by opals shimmering with enchanting flashes of fiery color. But the beauty is just the beginning. Not only is the painting a self-portrait of one of her favorite Pre-Raphaelite artists, Ashe Lloyd Lewis, but the brooch itself is a portal eight decades into the past.

Despite being cast into an era she was never meant to be in, Jeannine and Ashe develop an immediate and passionate bond, complicated by the undeniable fact that she does not belong in 1867, and the disaster about to destroy her family and reputation in her time.Striving to live a dual life and dangerously straddling two time periods, Jeannine fights to protect her career and her father from scandal in the present while desperately trying to save her lover’s life in the past.Forgetting to Remember—richly embroidered with historical detail and heartbreaking conflict—is another luscious and thrilling masterpiece by M.J. Rose. A beautiful and compelling story of art, war, magic, and survival, wrapped in a love that defies time.

Granite Harbor by Peter Nichols

Next up we have another review book. Thank you to Celadon Books for sending me an ARC of Granite Harbor by Peter Nichols. I jumped at the chance to read this book for two reasons. Reason number one is I adore a good murder mystery…and this sounds like it is just that. Second, the book is set in Maine which is where I grew up. I love reading books about places that I have lived or visited because I feel like it adds to the overall atmosphere of the book. I will be back with a review for this book as soon as I can. It really sounds like a great one!

Goodreads Synopsis

A small town in coastal Maine is under threat from a serial killer in this crime novel from Peter Nichols – bestselling author of The Rocks

In scenic Granite Harbor on the coast of Maine, life has continued on–quiet and serene–for decades. That is until a local teenager’s body is found brutally murdered and hung in The Settlement, the town’s historic archaeological site. The way the body is displayed, hung from a handmade wooden structure, and the singular gruesome clue left inside the corpse, signal that this might not have been the killer’s first victim.

Alex Brangwen is adjusting to life as a single father and the town’s sole detective after a failed career as a novelist. This is his first murder case, and as both a parent and detective, Alex knows the people of Granite Harbor are looking to him to catch the killer and temper the fear that has descended over the town. But his skills as a detective are rudimentary, and he worries that they are more novelist’s intuition than investigator’s expertise.

Isabel, a single mother attempting to support her family while healing from her own demons, finds herself in the middle of the case when she begins working at The Settlement. Her son Ethan, and Alex’s daughter Sophie, were best friends with the victim. When another teenager is found murdered, the body left with the same gruesome detail, both parents are terrified that their child may be next.

As Alex and Isabel race to find the killer in their midst, the town’s secrets, past and present, begin bubbling to the surface, threatening to unravel the tight-knit community. At once a page-turning thriller and a captivating portrait of the social fabric of a small town, Granite Harbor evokes the place and atmosphere of a Jane Harper mystery with a terrifying villain reminiscent of Thomas Harris’s Buffalo Bill.

None of This is True by Lisa Jewell

Next up we have None of This is True by Lisa Jewell. This next book I chose because it was one of the finalists in Book of the Month’s Book of the Year list. It was actually the ONLY book on that list that I hadn’t read yet so it was a pretty easy choice that I should choose that one. (BFF’s of Book of the Month get a free Book of the Year…and you know ya girl loves a free book). This book has received RAVE reviews everywhere and the premise sounds really interesting so I am looking forward to it. It is a psychological thriller which is another genre I love! Synopsis time…

Goodreads Synopsis

Lisa Jewell returns with a scintillating new psychological thriller about a woman who finds herself the subject of her own popular true crime podcast.

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.

A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?

Murder Road by Simone St.James

The excitement I have for this book is insane. Simone St.James can write the heck out of a thriller. I absolutely adored The Broken Girls and have several of her other books on my TBR. When I saw this listed as an Add-On book for Book of the Month this month I snagged it so fast. Murder Road sounds so fast-paced, exciting, and chilling and I can’t wait to get started. I will probably save this one for the end of the month just so I can end with a bang! Have you read any of Simone St.James’ books? SO good!

Goodreads Synopsis

A young couple find themselves haunted by a string of gruesome murders committed along an old deserted road in this terrifying new novel.

July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to be a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchhiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.

When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.

Happy Reading!

Drop me a comment below and let me know what you are reading this month!

I am going to try my very best to stick to this TBR but I can’t promise it won’t go completely sideways. Who knows which direction my bookish mood is headed…I am at the mercy of the books.

I promise to come back with a March Reading Wrap-Up at the end of the month so we can all see how very well I stuck to my TBR…or if it was a terrible failure…could go either way my friends. Could. Go. Either. Way.

Thank you again to Feedspot for adding Beaches and Reads to your Top 20 Florida Book Blogs. Truly means so much to me!