My Complete Book List – Read in 2022

The Nightengale

by Kristin Hannah

Kristin Hannah has the key to my literary heart. Two sisters in France during WW2, two completely different experiences. Both are inspiring, heartfelt, and gut-wrenching. I love this book. Hannah does an epic amount of research, so you are learning about critical historical moments through the eyes and minds of women just like you. Priceless.

Four Winds

by Kristin Hannah

This may be my favorite book of all time. Kristin Hannah as a way of writing female leads that stem from your everyday “normal” women in historically hard times. The bulk of this novel takes place in 1934. I personally did not know that The Dust Bowl was a thing, and on top of that, a thing that happened during The Great Depression leading up to WW2. That alone is enough for me to be exhausted for the main character, Elsa Wolcott. Sacrifice, love, family, survival, the strength of a mother, redefining yourself as a woman. Found Winds has it all. I wish I could read it for the first time over and over.

One Day in December

by Josie Silver

After The Fours Winds and The Nightengale, I was in need of something MUCH lighter. I picked this up at the library as part of the take one leave one shelf.

One Day in December is a sweet love story, following a group of friends over 10 years. While it has romantic movie moments, it has very real feelings and conversation littered throughout it. I found the novel enjoyable. It’s a great vacation read. I read this title in 3 days.

The Daughter of the Reich

by Louise Fein

An incredible novel that was gut-wrenching to read with everything going on in Ukraine. The daughter of a high ranker Nazi officer, Hetty starts as a young girl who blindly trusts her father and honors Hilter. But as the war evolves, Hetty grows up and starts to question the world around her. In a time of blatant misinformation, Daughter of the Reich takes you into the hearts of those mislead.

The Unwilling

by John Hart

I picked this up in an airport bookstore (because I can’t help myself at an airport bookstore), and I’m so glad I did. The Unwilling is an intricate story of 3 brothers and their police investigator father at the peak of the Vietnam War. A violent murder in the town unravels the mysteries of one of the brothers. John Hart dives into PTSD, from war and prison, and the ways families fall apart and come together.

The Girl in the Ice

by Robert Bryndza

If you love Law & Order: SVU this is the series for you. The Girl in the Ice is the first of the Detective Erika Foster series. It’s a very solid intro to a detective you want to keep up with. Think Captain Olivia Benson pre-Captain. Bryndza does an excellent job of weaving long-term character development into a gripping murder. It was a great start to the series and I will continue to read anything he writes.

The Night Stalker

by Robert Bryndza

If you love Law & Order: SVU this is the series for you. The Night Stalker is #2 in the Detective Erika Foster series and this one kept me up. A serial killer is suffocating seemingly unconnected high-level men in London. I had to take a break in the series after this one because I like to sleep once in a while.

Conversations with Friends

by Sally Rooney

One by One

by Ruth Ware

I listened to this on Audible, which I had never done for a crime novel before. It was a great listen while you read or drive audio. A group of tech founders heads to the mountains for a ski retreat. One by one they start to die. It has to be someone in the cabin. A solid who-done-it, but an easy-to-listen-to narrator. I’m curious to read one of Ruth Ware’s other novels to see how it reads vs listens. I feel like it would be a pretty quick vacation read.

Atomic Love

by Jennie Fields

Liking Myself Back

by Jacey Duprie

All Good People Here

by Ashley Flowers

The Lies I Tell

by Julie Clark