April wrapped: the 13 books I read and 5 recs for you

Including a new favorite book!

It’s been too long! This is my fault, but BOY, have I been busy and overwhelmed.

A week ago I landed in Lisbon and prepared for nearly a month of jam-packed “to-dos” in Portugal and Spain.

More on that later, but the good news is that I’ve got lots of reading in, and lots to catch up about with you! Let’s dive on in to April recs:

• I bought this matching set from Z Supply— which I’m not proud of, I feel like it was more than I’m comfortable spending, but maybe that’s just tariff era clothing shopping— and I wear it or a piece of it at least 3x a week. It’s perfect. I heartily recommend. I am wearing it now.

• This piece from

  Tell the Bees
  (a favorite of mine) on The Valley and “new adults” in the era of the Millennial midlife crisis was so good. I am a huge fan of The Valley, the most unsuspectingly good tv show out there right now.

  New Adults

• Crown Affair so nicely sent me their new black towel which I desperately wanted but was unable to get to before it sold out the first time. As a color treated brunette, this was a must-have for moi… even when I wasn’t using color, my white hair towels tend to get beat up after a few years. (Fair enough— they get more use than literally any other fabric item I own!)

  

  This one is the move! I’ve tried other towels (Kitsch, Act & Acre, random Amazon brands…) but none are as good as the Crown Affair one.

• A few months ago I ordered this Kindle cover via a creator/artist on TikTok Shop and its proved to be one of the best purchases I’ve made. (It’s frequently out of stock, so if you like it, I’d just sign up for a stock alert on TikTok Shop like I did.) I love that it basically has 3 ways to hold the Kindle and looks very cute sitting out.

• What do you guys think about this discourse from

  Jess Eggert
  and others on brands showing up on Substack? (Read the comments!)

Reminder: I’m shooting to read 105 books by the end of 2025, and each month I’ll update you on how I’m pacing, and what I’m reading.

I’m crushing it and enjoying myself these days, pacing 11 books ahead of schedule with a total of 45 books read. (That’s about 43% to my goal!)

A Girl Like Us by Anna Sophia McLoughlin // I’d read about this book in a bunch of Substacks and was excited, it was pitched as sort of a Succession meets The Hills— I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I thought it was just awful. It delivered on none of those promises or even the basic promise of being bearable to read!

Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni // This was a reread of a book that was on my bookshelf when I was growing up. I didn’t need to reread it, I learned by the end! It was kind of wild to read about an Iran and an America trapped in a time capsule from 2001.

This Is A Love Story by Jessica Soffer // I’m sorry to be so negative but this was also a much hyped book that I was prepared to love but couldn’t stand. It’s more prose than narrative fiction. I think if you like prose or contemporary poetry, this could be for you!

The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory // Continuing on my Philippa Gregory kick by slowly making my way through this series of audiobooks, each somewhere from 12-30 hours long…

The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory // Made it one more into the 27 book series! Woo hoo!

Endless Summer by Elin Hilderbrand // A collection of short stories and brief visits back in time to Elin Hilderbrand characters I know and miss to varying degrees.

28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand // A beach novel loosely based off of the whole “same time next year” affair concept, which, frankly, I’d never even heard of before! I can’t understand why these characters wouldn’t just… be together.

The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren // A standout from this month! I’d seen this cover for years and not thought I’d like it. Wrong! I thought it was really well done and I enjoyed all of it. This was the first Christina Lauren book I’ve liked and I will be going back for more!

The Conditions of Will by Jessa Hastings // The next novel from the author of my beloved Magnolia Parks universe is notably… not part of the Magnolia Parks universe, well, not really. I love Jessa Hastings but I was not a fan. I pick up her work because it feels like a total escape, like Gossip Girl almost— so the focus on extreme family trauma, death and r*pe was… not giving what I wanted it to… Maybe I’m old fashioned but I don’t really feel like you can write a “fun” or salacious book about r*pe, a word which I am censoring because I am not sure about Substack or email guidelines. Am I losing it?

A Nantucket Wedding by Nancy Thayer // I picked this up because I was told Nancy Thayer also writes Hilderbrand-esque novels set in Nantucket. This one didn’t tickle the same spot for me because I wanted to shake the characters by the shoulders… readers, if you’ve read a better Nancy Thayer book you’d recommend as entry point, can you let me know?

Done and Dusted by Lyla Sage // I’d seen this series pop up all over bookstores and Goodreads and I’d describe it as Yellowstone smut. Four or five chili peppers and a good thumbs up from moi.

Death at Inishmore Castle by Lucy Connelly // I’m not going to ever recommend you read these Kindle Unlimited cozy mysteries set in Ireland. They are so wildly factually inaccurate that I feel like I need to apologize to the Irish every time I read them. Sometimes I just need a short mystery palate cleanser, but this is not a rec.

Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods // I saved the best for last. This was my favorite book I’ve read lately. This author is so creative and I was constantly wondering what was going to happen next, even though it drew from classic tales like Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, the tale of Bluebeard and others. There are fae, but it’s the first fae book I’ve read that felt not at all derivative of Sarah J. Maas’s work… honestly, this book is the first thing that’s made me just sit down and write fiction of my own in… ever? I really treasured it.