Only Ever Her by MaryBeth Mayhew Whalen

Cover Image from Amazon 

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Title: Only Ever Her by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen
Received: Audible (free with Kindle Unlimited subscription)
Rating: 💖💖💖

This is the first book I've read by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, but I've had When We Were Worthy on my TBR list for some time now.  I picked up Only Ever Her after seeing it appear on several lists for best books to read this summer. While I intended to read this on my Kindle, the Audible version was free with the KU download, so I ended up listening to this on Audible. I thought the narration of the audio version was great! I'm very picky about narrators. The narration can make or break an audiobook for me. This audio version did not disappoint.

There are two mysteries in this book. One is the mystery of who killed Annie's mother, Lydia, twenty years ago in the small-town where Annie still lives. When Annie goes missing four days before her wedding, a second mystery unfolds. To top it off, the man that Annie wrongly identified as her mother's killer was just released from jail after twenty years when Annie recants her testimony.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I really enjoyed the short, quick chapters, and the audiobook kept me engaged. I enjoyed the pacing, the characterization, and the setting. Being from a small-town myself, I felt like the small town setting/life was portrayed perfectly. What I didn't love was the actual resolution to the mysteries that the book are centered around. I honestly felt let down by the ending. I think I was waiting on a big twist or surprise, and I think the author tried to do that with the revelation of who killed Lydia. I don't want to spoil the ending, but I will just say I wasn't impressed by the revelation because I had no emotional connection to the killer. As far as the mystery concerning Annie, I thought the ending was very anti-climatic.

The writing was great, but this book just fell a little flat for me. I gave it a 3 out of 5 rating though, because it held my attention until the end (which is a huge WIN). I think I went into this thinking it was a suspense/thriller novel, but the ending fell flat for me. I still want to read When We Were Worthy and will eventually get to it.

Happy Reading!

Let’s Discuss: How do you organize/edit your TBR list?

This post is part of the 2019 Discussion Challenge hosted by Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight and Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction. 

Oh, the To Be Read (TBR) List. To give you an idea about my TBR list, I currently have 716 books on my “Want to Read” list on Goodreads. I have 471 unread titles on my Kindle. I also have a Nook Color, which I don’t use much anymore, but on it (and the Nook app) I have 194 unread titles. On the iBook app, I have 12 unread titles.  I have no clue how many physical books. What I do know is that I have several unread books on my bookshelf, on my nightstand, by my bed, and (shame on me) in a large pull out drawer in my kitchen. It’s exciting and overwhelming all at the same time. Exciting because who knows what great book is waiting for me in all this? Overwhelming because how will I find it? 

If I’m honest, I will admit that I have a book buying problem.  Granted, many of the eBooks I have were received free from various services, like Bookbub or offered through various authors’ newsletters.  I also subscribe to many “discounted” eBook newsletters which provide daily deals on big name eBooks, so I often purchase through those newsletters.  As for physical books, I get many of those free through our local Little Free Libraries or from the Free Table from our local library.  I also get many books at dirt cheap prices from a local thrift store.  

A big problem I notice is that when it comes time to actually pick my next read, I more often than not find myself wandering the aisles at the local library or browsing Hoopla or Kindle Unlimited (which I recently signed up for at a limited time discounted price). So, I’m really not making much of a dent in my TBR pile, unless I am picking a title on my Goodreads TBR list (which I often don’t). The lure of an undiscovered book or a fresh off the presses title often seems to trump the books I already own.  

So what’s a reader to do? 

To try to help the feeling of overwhelm, I decided I was going to delete title of my TBR list on Goodreads. This ended up being much more difficult that I thought. It took me forever to figure out how to do this, and I then realized it would only delete a few titles at a time. Has anyone else had experience with this? 

I’ve also thought about deleting books off of Kindle/Nook/iTunes, starting with Kindle.  The only thing about this is, how do I choose which to delete? I think what I may do is go through and just delete ones that instinctively don’t appeal to me anymore. I know I have several romance novels that were free downloads that just don’t appeal to me anymore. It’s a start anyways. 

What about you? How do you organize your TBR list? Do you delete titles without reading them?