Down the TBR Hole #56

In mid-2017 I was inspired by a post on Bursting with Books to start tackling my TBR shelf on Goodreads and see if these were books I still wanted to read. The title and premise come from Lost in a Love Story. I eliminated quite a few books, but still have a massive TBR of over 2500 books. This year I’ll be tackling 10 books per week to determine if I am still interested and want to keep them, or if I’m ready to remove them from the list.

How does it work?

• Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf.
• Order on ascending date added.
• Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books
• Read the synopses of the books
• Decide: keep it or should it go?

This week’s selections:

The Bachelor by Carly Phillips
Fiction; Romance; Contemporary
Added March 10, 2014

Foreign correspondent Roman Chandler has always prized his freedom above all else. Now losing a coin toss has sealed this youngest brother’s fate. Finding someone to escort down the aisle is the easy part—every wannabe bride in sleepy Yorkshire Falls is itching to get hitched to this gorgeous, globe-trotting Chandler man. But Roman still lusts after the woman who got away. Stunning heartbreaker Charlotte Bronson has come home to put down roots and get her erotic lingerie business off the ground. She wants a man that won’t go chasing off to the far corners of the earth for a breaking news story. He wants her to say “I do.”

Verdict: Remove

Midnight Jewels by Jayne Ann Krentz
Fiction; Romantic Suspense; Contemporary
Added March 10, 2014

When a mysterious man enters a bookshop and demands a rare collection of 18th-century erotica, the owner has no idea that she will soon be a part of his dark and intriguing world.

Verdict: Keep

Silver Linings by Jayne Ann Krentz
Fiction; Romance; Contemporary
March 10, 2014

Successful but shy, Seattle art dealer Mattie Sharpe fell hard for handsome, outspoken, professional adventurer Hugh Abbott. When he broke her heart and returned to his South Sea island home, Mattie vowed she’d only meet him again over her—or better, his—dead body. When they do meet again, it’s over someone else’s dead body—and now they’re running for their lives through a tropical paradise.

Hugh’s talking fast to make up for his mistake. Mattie’s not listening…until his gentle touch ignites a white-hot fusion, and she gives in. But Hugh’s past is catching up with them, and Mattie must stake her very survival on the man she loves—the only man who ever let her down! If there is a silver lining to a broken heart, Mattie’s about to discover it—when love storms back into her life and sweeps her off her feet!

Verdict: Keep

Infamous by Suzanne Brockmann
Fiction; Romance; Paranormal
Added march 10, 2014

When history professor Alison Carter became a consultant to the film version of the Wild West legend she’d dedicated her career to researching, she couldn’t possibly have known that she would not only get a front-row seat to a full-blown Hollywood circus but would innocently witness something that would put her life in peril. Nor did she expect that a tall stranger in a cowboy hat would turn the movie—and her world—completely upside down.

A. J. Gallagher didn’t crash the set in dusty Arizona to rub elbows with Hollywood’s elite. Unable to ignore ghosts from the past that refuse to stay buried, A. J. came to put an end to the false legend that has tarnished the reputation of his family. But when he confronts Alison, sparks fly. And when Alison is targeted by ruthless criminals, suddenly she and A .J. must face the intense attraction that threatens to consume them—and survive the danger that threatens their very lives.

Verdict: Keep

Realityland by David Koenig
Nonfiction; Business
Added March 10, 2014

The first in-depth, unauthorized look at the creation and operation of the world’s most popular vacation destination. The author of the best-selling Mouse Tales: A Behind-the-Ears Look at Disneyland reveals how Walt Disney’s City of Tomorrow evolved into a sprawling resort where despite extraordinary efforts to control every aspect of the show everything doesn’t always go according to script

Verdict: Remove

We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg
Fiction; Historical; Chick Lit
Added March 10, 2014

It is the summer of 1964. In Tupelo, Mississippi, the town of Elvis’s birth, tensions are mounting over civil-rights demonstrations occurring ever more frequently-and violently-across the state. But in Paige Dunn’s small, ramshackle house, there are more immediate concerns. Challenged by the effects of the polio she contracted during her last month of pregnancy, Paige is nonetheless determined to live as normal a life as possible and to raise her daughter, Diana, in the way she sees fit-with the support of her tough-talking black caregiver, Peacie.
Diana is trying in her own fashion to live a normal life. As a fourteen-year-old, she wants to make money for clothes and magazines, to slough off the authority of her mother and Peacie, to figure out the puzzle that is boys, and to escape the oppressiveness she sees everywhere in her small town. What she can never escape, however, is the way her life is markedly different from others’. Nor can she escape her ongoing responsibility to assist in caring for her mother. Paige Dunn is attractive, charming, intelligent, and lively, but her needs are great-and relentless.
As the summer unfolds, hate and adversity will visit this modest home. Despite the difficulties thrust upon them, each of the women will find her own path to independence, understanding, and peace. And Diana’s mother, so mightily compromised, willend up giving her daughter an extraordinary gift few parents could match.

Verdict: Remove

The Forgotten Girl by Jessica Sorensen
Fiction; New Adult; Suspence
Added March 10, 2014

Twenty-one year-old Maddie Asherford is haunted by a past she can’t remember. When she was fifteen years old, there was a tragic accident and she was left with amnesia.

In the aftermath, Maddie’s left struggling with who she is—the forgotten girl she was six years ago or the Maddie she is now. Sometimes it even feels like she might be two different people—the good Maddie and the bad one.

Good Maddie goes to therapy, spends time with her family, and works on healing herself. Bad Maddie rebels and has dark thoughts of hurting people and sometimes even killing them.

For the most part, Maddie manages to keep her twisted thoughts hidden. That is until she starts having blackouts. Each time she wakes up from one, she’s near a murder scene with no recollection of what happened the night before and this helpless feeling like she’s losing control of her life. Maddie doesn’t want to believe she’s a killer, but she begins to question who she really was in her past. If she was bad Maddie all along and that maybe she was a killer.

Verdict: Remove

A Woman Alone by Faith Conlon and Ingrid Emerich
Nonfiction; Memoir; Travel
Added March 13, 2014

The idea of a journey without companions is too daunting for most travelers. Not so the women of this collection. These contemporary pioneers savor the ultimate freedom of solo travel. Marybeth Bond discovers the dubious pleasures of desert camel-riding when she decides to follow an ancient Indian trading route. Faith Adiele, a black Buddhist nun, enters a deserted train station at 3:00 a.m. in a Thai village controlled by armed bandits. Ena Singh negotiates with Russian police to visit the blue-domed city of Samarkand. In A Woman Alone, these women and others tell their funny, thrilling, occasionally terrifying, ultimately transformative stories of navigating some of the most unusual destinations on the globe.

Verdict: Remove

How to Organize (Just About) Anything by Peter Walsh
Nonfiction; Reference; Self-Help
Added March 13, 2014

Professional organizer Peter Walsh presents this witty and enormously practical guide to getting it — and keeping it — all together. With more than 500 easy-to-follow how-to instructions, How to Organize (Just About) Everything is packed with shrewd advice and insider tips to make your home, your workplace — indeed, every imaginable aspect of your life — run more smoothly. Step-by-step solutions help even the most organizationally challenged take on:

Kids

Schedules

Storage

Photos

Lists

Politics

Education

Remodels

Meals

Weddings

Finances

Holidays

Parties

Vacations

Emergencies

Verdict: Keep

The Daily Writer by Fred White
Nonfiction; Reference; Writing
Added March 13, 2014

It isn’t always easy to carve out time to devote meaningful thought and energy to your writing. Hectic schedules, distractions, and creative blocks all too often interrupt the dream – postpone it for another day.

But with 366 provocative entries – each addressing a specific facet of the writing craft, and accompanied by an in-depth reflection and a stimulating exercise – The Daily Writer provides you with easy entry points into that elusive space where words matter most and helps you to embrace writing as a way of seeing the world.

Whether you’re looking for a way to better integrate writing into your life, get warmed up before you dive into a bigger work in progress, or overcome an old case of writer’s block, The Daily Writer can help you establish and maintain an inspired devotion to the craft.

Verdict: Keep

Stats this week: Keep 5; Remove 5

2018 stats: Keep 91; Remove 199

**All covers link to Goodreads; all titles link to Amazon {affiliate}