It's my favorite day!

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Hiromi's Sonicwonder!

Last night Adam and I had a date night to Santa Cruz! We went to Betty Burgers for dinner (yum!), got Lemon Drop cookies at Pacific Cookie Company, and the went to Kuumbwa to see Hiromi's Sonicwonder!

I discovered Hiromi on youtube a number of years ago, and was an instant fan. She's truly a jazz virtuoso, but when she plays piano, you can just see the JOY radiating out of her.

I never thought I'd get to see her live, but this was my SECOND time - after seeing her at Yoshi's in Oakland back in 2023. 

The show was amazing! I can't wait to see her play live again next time she comes around!

Book 23 of 2025

Title: The Change
Author: Kirsten Smith
Published: 2022
Format: eBook
Date Started: 3/28/25
Date Finished: 4/2/25
Days to read: 6

I was interested when I saw this book featured women who develop magic powers when they go into menopause, but it was also a crime novel! Magic, feminine rage, friendship and crime - right up my alley. The book was great and I absolutely need this to be made in to a show or a movie, and Hannah Waddingham needs to play Harriet - it would be the most perfect casting ever.

Listening to:

Book 22 of 2025

Title: Lessons in Chemistry
Author: Bonnie Garmus
Published: 2022
Format: eBook
Date Started: 3/26/25
Date Finished: 3/27/25
Days to read: 2

I loved this book! I went in pretty blind, which is amazing considering how popular it is. Elizabeth Zott is such an interesting character! The sexist discrimination she faced was so gross, but I’m glad she stood up to it. The intertwining storylines bringing together past and present were so engaging, and I liked that the ending resolved the story but left room for a sequel (fingers crossed)!

Book 21 of 2025

Title: Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert
Author: Bob the Drag Queen
Published: 2025
Format: eBook
Date Started: 3/25/25
Date Finished: 3/26/25
Days to read: 2

I was so excited to get this book on release day! 

I love Bob the Drag Queen and this is their debut novel. It was a quick read, and I enjoyed it - the premise was so creative! However, the writing felt a little undeveloped, and the book could have benefited from the characters and scenes being fleshed out a little more. I think Bob shows promise and I hope they write another book!

Listening to:

My Morning Jacket - is (2025)

Book 20 of 2025

Title: A Rogue of One's Own
Author: Evie Dunmore
Published: 2020
Format: Paperback
Date Started: 3/19/25
Date Finished: 3/24/25
Days to read: 6

This is the 2nd book in a historical romance series set during the British Suffrage movement. I really enjoyed this one - Lucie (the main character) was so ‘real’ in her devotion to her values and belief in making sure women were treated as... well, people. Her love interest (Tristan) had a 

surprising amount of depth, and I really loved him by the end. Such a delightful and fun read!

Book 19 of 2024

Title: Worst Case Scenario
Author: T.J. Newman
Published: 2024
Format: eBook
Date Started: 3/18/25
Date Finished: 3/18/25
Days to read: 1

This was a wild, terrifying, heart wrenching story, and I couldn’t put it down! T.J. Newman has a real talent for writing characters that, when faced with unfathomable situations, behave in a completely realistic way. Her books are also well researched and the technical details read authentically. This is her third book and they have all been so good!! I’m a fan for life.

Book 18 of 2025

Title: We Solve Murders
Author: Richard Osman
Published: 2024
Format: eBook
Date Started: 3/7/25
Date Finished: 3/15/25
Days to read: 9

This took me a while to read because I’m in a bit of a slump, but any other time I would have binged it in a few days. An excellent, twisty murder mystery! Once I got all the characters straight (there were a lot!) I was hooked. I loved that when a character had a hunch or thought about who the murderer was, they ‘kept it to themselves’, leaving me to keep guessing!

Book 17 of 2024

Title: The House of my Mother
Author: Shari Franke
Published: 2025
Format: eBook
Date Started: 3/5/25
Date Finished: 3/6/25
Days to read: 2

I’ve never been a fan of family vlogging (it’s immoral and unethical), so I wasn’t familiar with the Franke family when this story hit the news. The details are horrifying, and reading about it from the perspective of one of the children affected was just so sad. It’s inspiring that even after all she’s been through she’s speaking out for other children forced into vlogging.

Book 16 of 2025

Title: Can't We Be Freinds
Author: Eliza Knight, Denny S. Bryce
Published: 2024
Format: eBook
Date Started: 2/25/25
Date Finished: 3/4/25
Days to read: 8

This is a fictionalized book about the unlikely friendship between Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe. I *really* wanted to like this, but it just felt like a slog. It jumped between 1st person (Ella) and 3rd person (Marilyn), which took me out of the story every time it switched, and I questioned how much was based in reality. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t compelling enough for me.

Book 15 of 2025

Title: She's Up to No Good
Author: Sara Goodman Confino
Published: 2022
Format: eBook
Date Started: 2/22/25
Date Finished: 2/24/25
Days to read: 3

This is the second book I’ve read by this author! 

A woman going through a divorce takes her feisty grandma back to her family’s home town, and learns all kinds of things on the journey. I’m a sucker for family history stories, and I loved how the plot moved forward by jumping back and forth between present day and the grandmother’s youth.  Such a fun read!

Book 14 of 2025

Title: The Deep
Author: Rivers Solomon
Published: 2019
Format: eBook
Date Started: 2/19/25
Date Finished: 2/23/25
Days to read: 3

I loved the last book I read by Rivers Solomon so I was excited to pick this up - and it exceeded my expectations. The concept of a society where nearly all of its members live with no knowledge of their history of trauma hit a little close to home right now. I also love that the process of creating this story was described as an artistic game of telephone (read the afterword!)

Book 13 of 2025

Title: The Last Murder at the End of the World

Author: Stuart Turton

Published: 2024

Format: eBook

Date Started: 2/16/25

Date Finished: 2/19/25

Days to read: 4

The last of humanity will be extinguished in a few days, and there is a murder to solve - what to do? This book has been on my TBR since I saw it in a bookshop in Ireland, and I’m so glad I finally got to it. I went into this pretty much blind, I picked it mostly because I liked the cover, but the story inside did not disappoint! This is a mystery that is expertly told, and I really enjoyed it.