Rachel Reads & Reviews

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  • Ranking The Wedgeford Trials

    Courtney Milan does it again! I wrote in my ranking for Milan’s Turner trilogy that Milan is a rare romance author who nixes the miscommunication trope that plague so many couples. Rather she subverts the status quo and has the couple communicate like mature adults while maintaining the suspense of internal/external forces threatening their coupledom.…

  • Speak Review

    The first ten lies they tell you in high school. “Speak up for yourself—we want to know what you have to say.” From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted…

  • Three Girls in the City

    Horse girls may be more familiar with Jeanne Betancourt for her popular Pony Pals series, here she takes a different slice of life approach with, as the title says, Three Girls in the City. The premise is as follows: NYC, 2002. Three 13 year-old girls meet at a summer photo Carolyn, fresh from Wyoming, motherless…

  • Ranking Lively St. Lemons

    Lively St. Lemons is a small village with intense political rivalries between the Whigs and Tories. But that’s a side note to the intricacies of the population therein. 1. Sweet Disorder: Phoebe Sparks is such a unique heroine in the historical romance genre. She’s plus-sized, hot-tempered, has intense maternal desire, and a dirty mind. She…

  • My Sister the Vampire

    Yes, I return to the world of early 2000s nostalgia with this series-My Sister the Vampire. This time I read all eighteen books. Here’s the initial premise. When Olivia Abbott moves to town, she’s excited to join the cheerleading team and make new friends. Then she meets Ivy Vega. At first, Ivy, pale and dressed…

  • Twisted Tales: Cruel Truth Review

    What if Anita and Cruella were best friends? It’s 1953, and teenage Anita Weatherby and her family have just moved to a booming postwar London. While her older sister settles right in, to the delight of their parents, Anita finds their new school—and her academic rival, Roger Radcliffe—daunting. Nothing seems to be going Anita’s way…

  • The Singular Life of Aria Patel Review

    Aria Patel likes stability, certainty, predictability. It’s why she’s so into science. It’s why she dumped her boyfriend before they went to different colleges because the odds were that something would go wrong, eventually. In a life that’s already so chaotic, why obsess over complicated relationships and shadowy unknowns when the scientific method gives you direction and a straight…

  • The Charlotte Years

    I did it! I did it! Yay, yay, I did it! Finally finished the Little House books. So proud of myself. And that’s pretty much the most exciting thing I can say about the quartet. Much like The Martha Years, four books over the ages of 5-12 is not enough time to see dynamic growth.…

  • Beacon Street Girls

    As I hit my quarter life crisis or point, whatever you want to call it, I decided that I should finally read the book series I have at this point always skimmed-the Beacon Street Girls! Just as the tagline says “They’re real, they’re fun, they’re just like you.” Each book presents a slice of life…

  • Sarah Masters Buckey Interview

    Sarah Masters Buckey is the author of several mysteries in the American Girl historical line, and the stand-alone History Mystery series. She graciously took the time to answer my questions about the historic fiction genre, working with the American Girl brand and what’s coming next. Enjoy! 1. What first drew you to writing? More specifically,…