Happy November! We are moving right along into the holiday season – which is my favorite season, of course. As always, I’m narrowing down the Amazon First Reads’ books to the list I would be interested in reading and which I actually downloaded for myself. Check out my list of November 2023 Amazon First Reads recommendations below!
You can see the full list of November 2023 Amazon First Reads here.
What I Downloaded – Romance
Same Time Next Year – Tessa Bailey
Is it any surprise that I’m the picking the romance novella by Tessa Bailey this month? Hockey & marriage of convenience! AHHH!
Official Blurb
Adored by all, Britta is an ambitious waitress working at Sluggers. The popular bar holds a special place in her heart and is a regular hangout for the Bridgeport Bandits, the local hockey club. With a half brother on the team, Britta has a strict no-dating policy for hockey boys. But she does have a soft spot for one particular player.
A beast on the ice, Sumner Mayfield is on the brink of breaking into the NHL. But time’s running out. With his work visa about to expire…
Sumner’s only chance to stay in Bridgeport is to marry an American—and get a green card. Otherwise, it’s back to Canada for the defenseman.
On New Year’s Eve, the team begs Britta to marry Sumner that very night. Sum is embarrassed yet hopeful—he’s desperately in love. But Britta balks at first. Until something about Sumner’s soulful brown eyes and ripped physique makes her reconsider…
Romantic Comedy
Never Meant To Stay – Trisha Das
Family dynamics are at play when a young family friend barges in and… just might fix everything?!
Official Blurb
Home has always been a temporary arrangement for Samara Mansingh, a wayfaring wedding photographer and the daughter of a diplomat. When her father is uprooted once again, Samara needs a place to stay in Delhi. Next stop: the Khanna family. Samara’s memories of the Khannas are vague at best, but she doesn’t remember their home feeling so much like a war zone. And the last thing their surly eldest son, Sharav, wants is a houseguest eavesdropping on the chaos.
Sharav has a melodramatic sister pushing back on an arranged marriage, a withdrawn lead-singer brother who won’t sing, and a widowed mother hiding her grief in the garden. Sweeping into the household like a tornado, irrepressible Samara is a practically perfect distraction.
She has a mind to help a girl find true love, push a young man to find his voice, and bring a lonely and loving widow out of mourning. Maybe Samara can even get on Sharav’s ruggedly handsome good side.
The only sure thing is that the Khanna family will never be the same again. Neither will Samara, who may finally find what she’s been missing her entire life: a home.
Women’s Fiction (Great Book Club Recs)
When We Were Enemies – Emily Bleeker
Dual timelines between a grandmother and granddaughter with Hollywood and WWII settings.
Official Blurb
Camera-shy Elise Branson is different from the other women in her maternal line. Her mother is an award-winning actress. Her late grandmother, Vivian Snow, is a beloved Hollywood icon. But when Elise’s upcoming wedding coincides with a documentary being made about Vivian, Elise can’t escape the camera’s gaze. And neither can her grandmother, even in death.
It’s 1943 when Vivian, a small-town Indiana girl, lends her home front support to the war effort. As a translator in the nearby Italian POW camp, she’s invaluable. As a celebrated singer for the USO, she lifts men’s spirits and falls in love with a soldier…
But behind this all-American love story is a shocking secret—one that is vital to keep buried if Vivian is to achieve the fame and fortune she covets.
For Elise and Vivian, what’s hidden—and what’s exposed—threatens to unravel their lives. The heart-wrenching choices they must make will change them both forever.
Leave It To Us – A.C. Arthur
3 estranged sisters reunite to get their inheritance from grandma. They’ve all got a different life story to tell – see how they come back together.
Official Blurb
When the Butler sisters learn they’ve inherited their beloved grandma Betty’s beach house in South Carolina, they have mixed emotions. To put it mildly.
Successful Lana seems to have it all. Nobody needs to know that her marriage and finances are falling apart. For her there’s no other option but to sell the beach house. Overburdened Yvonne already has priorities—including being her mother’s sole caretaker. Her advice: put it on the market and move on. Then there’s sentimental Tami. She can’t let her sisters just unload their past without at least one last trip to the Sea Islands.
They don’t have a choice. If they’re to collect, they must reunite and renovate their grandma’s bequest.
During a life-changing month on the shore, the Butler sisters not only uncover family secrets but start to repair their broken bond through personal revelations and a newfound desire to keep their family legacy alive. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s a beautiful start.
Thriller/Suspense
The Daughter’s of Block Island – Christa Carmen
Gothic suspense is just so fun. And this book sounds like no exception!
Official Blurb
Two sisters, strangers since birth yet bound by family secrets, are caught up in a century-old mystery on an isolated island.
After arriving on Block Island to find her birth mother, Blake Bronson becomes convinced she’s the heroine of a gothic novel—the kind that allowed her intermittent escape from a traumatic childhood. How else to explain the torrential rain, the salt-worn mansion known as White Hall, and the restless ghost purported to haunt its halls? But before Blake can discern the novel’s ending, she’s found dead, murdered in a claw-foot tub. The proprietress of White Hall stands accused.
Summoned by a letter sent from Blake before she died, Thalia Mills returns to the island she swore she’d left for good. She finds that Blake wasn’t the first to die at White Hall under suspicious circumstances. Thalia must uncover the real reason for Blake’s demise before the forces conspiring to keep Block Island’s secrets dead and buried rise up to consume her too.
Please Tell Me – Mike Omer
A full on psychological thriller about a traumatized child that might be the key to stopping a serial killer.
Official Blurb
When eight-year-old Kathy Stone turns up on the side of the road a year after her abduction, the world awaits her harrowing story. But Kathy doesn’t say a word. Traumatized by her ordeal, she doesn’t speak at all, not even to her own parents.
Child therapist Robin Hart is the only one who’s had success connecting with the girl. Robin has been using play therapy to help Kathy process her memories. But as their work continues, Kathy’s playtime takes a grim turn: a doll stabs another doll, a tiny figurine is chained to a plastic toy couch. All of these horrifying moments, enacted within a Victorian doll house. Every session, another toy dies.
But the most disturbing detail? Kathy seems to be playacting real unsolved murders.
Soon Robin wonders if Kathy not only holds the key to the murders of the past but if she knows something about the murders of the future. Can Robin unlock the secrets in Kathy’s brain and stop a serial killer before he strikes again? Or is Robin’s work with Kathy putting her in the killer’s sights?
Final Thoughts
Let me know if you download or read of these Amazon First Reads’ books – in the comments or over on Instagram! If you liked list of November 2023 Amazon First Reads’ book that I would read, I’d love for you to share this post!
