Welcome to my March 2025 Favorite Books post! This monthly post is where I share the 5 star books I’ve read so far each month. You can see the first half of my March reading here and I will share the rest of my March reads next week. There is still time left this month so if I have any additional 5 star reads they will be shared in next week’s post as well. The Amazon links to the books I’ve read are affiliate links and if you use them and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission.
Title: Last Twilight in Paris
Author: Pam Jenoff
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Park Row, 2/4/25
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review.
My Rating: 5 Stars
I love Pam Jenoff’s World War II focused historical fiction. This one is about Louise, who was a Red Cross volunteer who in 1953 finds a necklace that she knows she saw during the war. The story flashes back to her time volunteering, showing some of the failings of the Red Cross at the time. And the book also is about Helaine, growing up pre war and during the war being imprisoned inside the Levitan Department Store in Paris.
“London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a department store in Paris, and she is certain she has seen the necklace before, when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe —and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend Franny during the war. Following the trail of clues to Paris, Louise seeks help from her former boss Ian, with whom she shares a romantic history. The necklace leads them to discover the dark history of Lévitan—a once-glamorous department store that served as a Nazi prison, and Helaine, a woman who was imprisoned there, torn apart from her husband when the Germans invaded France. Louise races to find the connection between the necklace, the department store and Franny’s death. But nothing is as it seems, and there are forces determined to keep the truth buried forever.”
I loved the mystery of the necklace, as well as the one surrounding the death of Louise’s friend Franny. I also liked the love story and the stories of the two featured women.
Title: We Are Watching
Author: Alison Gaylin
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: William Morrow, 1/28/25
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review.
My Rating: 5 Stars
I loved Alison Gaylin’s previous book The Collective and I loved this one too. This is about a family that is targeted by conspiracy theorists with antisemitic ideas, accusing Meg’s family as satanists. While Meg thought her father Nathan was just being paranoid, she soon realized how his fears were actually real.
“Sometimes the world is out to get you. Meg Russo was behind the wheel when it happened. She and her husband Justin were driving their daughter Lily to Ithaca College, the family celebrating the eighteen-year-old music prodigy’s future. Then a car swerved up beside them, the young men inside it behaving bizarrely—and Meg lost control of her own vehicle. The family road trip turned into a tragedy. Justin didn’t survive the accident. Four months later, Meg works to distract herself from her grief and guilt, reopening her small local bookstore. But soon after she returns to work, bizarre messages and visitors begin to arrive, with strangers threatening Meg and Lily in increasingly terrifying ways. They are obsessed with a young adult novel titled The Prophesy, which was published thirty years earlier. An online group of believers are convinced that it heralds the apocalypse, and social media posts link the book—and Meg’s reclusive musician father—to Satanism. These conspiracy theorists vow to seek revenge on The Prophesy’s author…Meg. As the threats turn violent, Meg begins to suspect that Justin’s death may not have been an accident. To find answers and save her daughter, her father, and herself, Meg must get to the root of these dangerous lies—and find a way to face the believers head-on … before it’s too late.”
This book begins with a car accident and the death of Meg’s husband. Meg owns a bookstore and she keeps experiencing people acting strangely towards her and her family. Her relationship with her daughter Lily is an important part of the story as well. This was creepy and compelling and definitely a new favorite thriller.
Title: The Story She Left Behind
Author: Patti Callahan Henry
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Atria, 3/18/25
Source: Goodreads Giveaway
Why I Read It: Anticipated book
My Rating: 5 Stars
I truly love Patti Callahan Henry’s writing and I was thrilled to win this book in a giveaway. It is about Clara, whose mom disappeared when Clara was 8. A young writer, she left behind the sequel to her book, but it was written in a secret language. Now Clara gets a call from Charlie, who has found a dictionary for this language in his late father’s study. Clara and her 8 year old daughter Wynnie go to England to meet Charlie and learn more about Clara’s mother. When they arrive in London, they find themselves surrounded by smog. They escape to Charlie’s family home in the Lake District, where more secrets are revealed.
“In 1927, eight-year-old Clara Harrington’s magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, disappears off the coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national sensation when she was just twelve years old. Her departure leaves behind not only a devoted husband and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work. As the headlines focus on the missing author, Clara yearns for something far deeper and more insatiable: her beautiful mother. By 1952, Clara is an illustrator raising her own daughter, Wynnie. When a stranger named Charlie Jameson contacts her from London claiming to have discovered a handwritten dictionary of her mother’s lost language. Clara is skeptical. Compelled by the tragedy of her mother’s vanishing, she crosses the Atlantic with Wynnie only to arrive during one of London’s most deadly natural disasters—the Great Smog. With asthmatic Wynnie in peril, they escape the city with Charlie and find refuge in the Jameson’s family retreat nestled in the Lake District. It is there that Clara must find the courage to uncover the truth about her mother and the story she left behind.”
This was such a beautiful story of mothers and daughters, stories and authors, and the love that can be found when you let it in. And that cover! It takes place in 1952 and is based on a real story.
Title: Battle of the Bookstores
Author: Ali Brady
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Berkley, 6/4/25
Source: Author
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
I was chosen as a team captain for one of the Battle of the Traveling ARCs and I received an advanced copy of Battle of the Bookstores to read and pass along to my team. It is now on its way to its fourth reader! This book is about Josie and Ryan, who own bookstores that are in competition with one another, though they each sell different genres and can each exist on their own. This sets up an enemies to lovers love story to books, bookstores, and reading. At the same time, Josie and Ryan are unknowingly messaging each other on a message board for a You’ve Got Mail type set up.
“Despite managing bookstores on the same Boston street, Josie Klein and Ryan Lawson have never interacted much—Josie’s store focuses on serious literature, and Ryan’s sells romance only. But when the new owner of both stores decides to combine them, the two are thrust into direct competition. Only one manager will be left standing, decided by who turns the most profit over the summer. Efficient and detail-oriented Josie instantly clashes with easygoing and disorganized Ryan. Their competing events and contrasting styles lead to more than just frustration—the sparks between them might just set the whole store on fire. Their only solace during this chaos is the friendship they’ve each struck up with an anonymous friend in an online book forum. Little do they know they’re actually chatting with each other. As their rivalry heats up in real life, their online relationship grows, and when the walls between their stores come tumbling down, Josie and Ryan realize not all’s fair in love and war. And maybe, if they’re lucky, happily ever afters aren’t just for the books.”
I loved this book and it made me want to work in a bookstore! I loved reading this and annotating it by marking all the things I loved in it! Plus so many lols! It’s not out till June, but I definitely recommend this one when it does come out.
Title: Jane and Dan at the End of the World
Author: Colleen Oakley
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Audio, 3/11/25
Source: Audio Publisher
Why I Read It: Anticipated book
My Rating: 5 Stars
I have loved all of Colleen Oakley’s books and was hoping for a print copy of Jane and Dan at the End of the World, but I thoroughly enjoyed this audio narrated by Hillary Huber, which kept me entertained and laughing throughout. This book is about Jane and Dan, and yes they are at the end of the world. Well, a restaurant called La Fin Du Monde. It’s their anniversary, but Jane wants a divorce. When the restaurant is taken over by a group of hostages, everything from the set up to their dialogue seems to be straight from the text of Jane’s novel. Jane and Dan have to try to stop the situation before things get worse – and they know how the story is going to end!
“Jane and Dan have been married for nineteen years, but Jane isn’t sure they’re going to make it to twenty. The mother of two feels unneeded by her teenagers, and her writing career has screeched to an unsuccessful halt. Her one published novel sold under five hundred copies. Worse? She’s pretty sure Dan is cheating on her. When the couple goes to the renowned upscale restaurant La Fin du Monde to celebrate their anniversary, Jane thinks it’s as good a place as any to tell Dan she wants a divorce. But before they even get to the second course, an underground climate activist group bursts into the dining room. Jane is shocked—and not just because she’s in a hostage situation the likes of which she’s only seen in the movies. Nearly everything the disorganized and bumbling activists say and do is right out of the pages of her failed book. Even Dan (who Jane wasn’t sure even read her book) admits it’s eerily familiar. Which means Dan and Jane are the only ones who know what’s going to happen next. And they’re the only ones who can stop it. This wasn’t what Jane was thinking of when she said ‘’til death do us part’ all those years ago, but if they can survive this, maybe they can survive anything—even marriage.”
I loved that this book is about a couple in midlife who have been married for a long time and with teenage kids. Jane describes motherhood as the intersection of guilt, anxiety, and love. Her thoughts and their narration were relatable and funny. This was different from the author’s other books, but I loved it anyway.
Title: Count My Lies
Author: Sophie Strava
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Gallery / Scout Press, 3/4/25
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
Count My Lies by Sophie Stava was a fun, fast, and twisty thriller that reminds the reader of other similar books but was still a great read for me. It is about Sloane, who meets Jay and his daughter at the park and soon becomes friends with his wife Violet and starts to work as their daughter’s nanny. The only problem is that everything she tells them is a lie, including her real name. And she’s not the only one who’s lying.
“Sloane Caraway is a liar. Harmless lies, mostly, to make her self-proclaimed sad, little life a bit more interesting. So when Sloane sees a young girl in tears at a park one afternoon, she can’t help herself—she tells the girl’s (very attractive) dad she’s a nurse and helps him pull a bee stinger from the girl’s foot. With this lie, and chance encounter, Sloane becomes the nanny for the wealthy, and privileged Jay and Violet Lockhart. The perfect New York couple, with a brownstone, a daughter in private school, and summers on Block Island. But maybe Sloane isn’t the only one lying, and all that’s picture-perfect harbors a much more dangerous truth. To say anything more is to spoil the most exciting, twisty, and bitingly smart suspense novel to come out in years.”
I think any thriller lover will enjoy this one!
Title: Counting Backwards
Author: Jacqueline Friedland
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Harper Muse, 3/11/25
Source: PR for Author
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
I had not read Jacqueline Friedland’s previously and now I’m wondering why! This book was so good. It is about how the historical legal case of Carrie Buck, who was considered unfit for motherhood and underwent forced sterilization. In the present, Jessa is a lawyer who is trying to conceive. She takes on a pro bono immigration case and uncovers a medical malpractice cover up at the facility. With a personal connection to Carrie’s court case and to the desire to have children, Jessa understands how important it is to have your own self determination and to stand on your own.
“New York, 2022. Jessa Gidney is trying to have it all–a high-powered legal career, a meaningful marriage, and hopefully, one day, a child. But when her professional ambitions come up short and Jessa finds herself at a turning point, she leans into her family’s history of activism by taking on pro bono work at a nearby ICE detention center. There she meets Isobel Pérez–a young mother fighting to stay with her daughter–but as she gets to know Isobel, an unsettling revelation about Isobel’s health leads Jessa to uncover a horrifying pattern of medical malpractice within the detention facility. One that shockingly has ties to her own family. Virginia, 1927. Carrie Buck is an ordinary young woman in the center of an extraordinary legal battle at the forefront of the American eugenics conversation. From a poor family, she was only six years old when she first became a ward of the state. Uneducated and without any support, she spends her youth dreaming about a different future–one separate from her exploitative foster family–unknowing of the ripples her small, country life will have on an entire nation. As Jessa works to assemble a case against the prison and the crimes she believes are being committed there, she discovers the landmark Supreme Court case involving Carrie Buck. Her connection to the case, however, is deeper and much more personal than she ever knew–sending her down new paths that will leave her forever changed and determined to fight for these women, no matter the cost.”
I loved Jessa’s growth and learning in this book. Her husband was kind of the worst and I was cheering for Jessa. I also really liked her grandmother, who raised her after she lost her parents. As her story includes infertility, be aware if this is something that is sensitive for you to read about. Carrie’s story is quite sad as well.
Title: Summer In The City
Author: Alex Aster
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: William Morrow, 3/25/25
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
I loved this fun and light rom com about Elle and Parker. Parker is a tech billionaire and Elle is a screenwriter who writes under an alias. The two end up as neighbors in New York City and fake date when Parker needs a fake girlfriend and Elle needs inspiration for her screenplay set in NYC.
“Twenty-seven-year-old screenwriter Elle has the chance of a lifetime to write a big-budget movie set in New York City. The only problem? She’s had writer’s block for months, and her screenplay is due at the end of the summer. In a desperate attempt at inspiration, Elle ends up back in the city she swore she would never return to, in an apartment she could never afford (floor-to-ceiling windows, skyline views, and a new coffee shop to haunt included). It’s the perfect place to write her screenplay…until she realizes her new neighbor is tech ‘Billionaire Bachelor’ Parker Warren, her stairwell hookup from two years ago. It’s been a lovers-to-enemies situation ever since. When seeing him again turns into a full night of hate-fueled writing, Elle realizes her enemy/twisted muse might just be the key to finishing her screenplay… if she can stand being around her polar opposite. She writes anonymously, and he’s on the cover of every business magazine. He frequents fancy red carpeted events, and she doesn’t like leaving her emotional support five block radius. One summer. One wall apart. He needs to fake a buzzy relationship during his company’s precarious acquisition. She needs to write a movie around a list of NYC locations. Both need a break from their unrelenting schedules, and a chance to rediscover the skyscraper glimmering, pizza crusted, sunlit charms of the city. Summers always end, and so will this agreement. It’s all pretend. Promise. Until it isn’t.”
While the romance in this was a lot of fun, the book also has substance with Elle’s family issues and fear of abandonment. I really enjoyed reading this one.
Title: Back After This
Author: Linda Holmes
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2/25/25
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
While I liked Linda Holmes’s book Evvie Drake Starts Over, I was less of a fan of Flying Solo, and I was going to pass on this one. Luckily I didn’t, because I loved it! This is about Cecily, who is a podcast producer and becomes the host of a new show in which she goes on 20 blind dates. Meanwhile, she also meets a kind and funny man chasing a run away Great Dane. And then she keeps running into him.
“Cecily Foster loves to make podcasts. She fiercely protects her colleagues, dearly adores her friends, and never misses dinner with her sister. But after a disastrous relationship with a colleague who stole her heart and her ideas, she’s put romantic love on hold. When the boss who’s disappointed her again and again finally offers her the chance to host her own show, she wants to be thrilled. But there’s a catch—actually, two catches. First, the show will be about Cecily’s dating life. And second, she has to follow the guidance of influencer and newly minted relationship coach Eliza Cassidy, whose relentlessly upbeat attitude seems ready-made for social media, not real life. Cecily would rather do anything other than put her singledom on display (ugh) or take advice from the internet (UGH). But when her boss hints that doing the show is the only way to protect a friend’s job, she realizes she has no choice. To make matters more complicated, once she’s committed to twenty blind dates of Eliza’s choosing, Cecily finds herself unable to stop thinking about Will, a photographer she helped to rescue a very big and very lovable lost dog. Even though there are sparks between the two, Will’s own path is uncertain, and Eliza’s skeptical comments about Cecily’s decision-making aren’t helping. On the one hand, Will seems great. But on the other hand . . . don’t they all? As Cecily struggles to balance the life she truly desires and the one Eliza wants to create for her, she finds herself at a crossroads. Can Cecily sort through all the advice and find a way to do what she loves without losing herself in the process?”
I loved Will and his amazing dog rescue! I appreciated that the 20 dates weren’t dragged out and were summed up succinctly. I loved the characters and their banter as well as the way Cecily evolved with regard to her career. I’m so glad I read this one!
Come back next week for the rest of my March reads!
Do you have a favorite book you’ve read this month?
