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Melanie

@meloplanner

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✍️Aspiring author • Traveler• Book lover
2026📚Goal: 138/120
📚ARC/Beta Reader
📖 Thrillers, cozy/ mysteries, historical fiction, gothic suspense

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📚Reading like my life depends on it!

Readers make great writers…I hope😀 37k words into my novel! In 2026, I will finish my first book! by @meloplanner

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9

a year ago

🫆In my cozy mystery era and making dorky book condition reels😉

My selfies are never great🤣like actually epically bad usually! I look angry from concentrating on taking the picture - Unfiltered life here🤣

In 2026, I am challenging myself to read across the genres! by @meloplanner

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a year ago

📚📚Probably signed up for too many ARCs, but I got this!! 📚📚

In 2026, my goal is to read down my TBR and not overcommit to ARCs- wish me luck! by @meloplanner

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6

a year ago

📚Book Review

🛣️Civil Terror Gridlock by @jlukebennecke
🛣️Genre: Thriller, Terrorist Thriller
🛣️Location: California
🛣️480p
⭐️⭐️⭐️

What a fascinating plot idea and equally frightening to consider as we progress in this time of autonomous cars and AI, the thought that it can be weaponized.

I was at a recent author event when an author referred to books as men’s fiction, I think that fits this. It is very action thriller, male dominated in characters. These are not negatives, just parts of the story.

It is a ticking clock, falsely accused, someone’s lying race to figure out the bad guys before catastrophic mayhem ensues. I kept thinking about Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. A rapid moving scenes, high speed racing to and fro, alphabet agencies, undercover ops.

At times I was a bit confused about some of the players, and how a few things were connected, but overall entertaining, quite the debut novel. I am binging the three book series!

⁉️QOTD: Have you ridden in an autonomous car? What would you do while your car drives you to and fro?

Thank you @partnersincrimevbt and @jlukebennecke for sharing the Jake Bendel series with me to enjoy and review.

#bookreview #gridlock #jakebendelseries

💬Blurb
Self-driving vehicles finally arrive. But so do the terrorists.

A riveting story raising questions about the security of artificial intelligence and self-driving cars.

Fed up with slogging through L.A. traffic to get to work, Jake Bendel and a team of experts create a roadway system for self-driving cars - preventing thousands of traffic deaths and reducing commute times from hours to minutes.

For three months there’s been no traffic congestion. No accidents. No fatalities. People finally feel safe in their cars. But should they?

Disaster strikes when a supposed glitch causes a deadly attack on a busy California freeway, and the FBI begins connecting dots to a larger terrorist conspiracy at play.

Viktor, a tormented psychopath and the mastermind behind the ruthless attack, is driven by the voices in his head who guide his every move. While he and his brothers mercilessly annihilate Americans, Viktor plants evidence that convinces the pub by @meloplanner

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0

an hour ago

📚Book Review

🇲🇽Mia by Leslie Bazzett
🇲🇽Genre: Contemporary Women’s Lit/ Psychological Fiction
🇲🇽Location: Mexico
🇲🇽320p
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I got to listen to and meet this author at a recent book fair. Her description sold me on the book, that and it is set in Mexico which worked for my #readaroundtheworldchallenge 😉

I am going to borrow a line from the book to describe this story, it is complicated: full of deceit and violation, loss and longing, beauty and ugliness, and we sit afterward and think about it.

I feel like I am still sitting and thinking about it. There were so many different people that were woven into Sally’s story. They all were subtly being played by the puppet master of it all.

I found myself feeling anxious while reading because there was just something about Louise that made you feel apprehensive, she had an unclear motive to her actions that kept you on edge, always wondering what she was going to do next.

I was a bit surprised by her final action near the end, no spoilers here! But then I felt a bit rushed with the finale and jump forward a decade. I wanted a little more closure to the finale then before the final now.

What a debut!

⁉️QOTD: what’s a book still renting space in your mind? And new to you authors you have found lately?

#BookReview #scribner #lesliebazzettauthor

A stylish, unsettling work of psychological suspense about an American woman, adrift in Mexico for a year, whose chance encounter with a glamorous older expat spirals into obsession and betrayal.

There’s no one, there’s only you.

When Sally, an American living in San Miguel de Allende, meets Louise outside her children’s school, she’s eager to immerse herself more deeply in the life of the city. In Mexico for just a year with her husband, an architect, Sally is entranced by Louise—her elegance, her harshness, her stories about Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouac—and the two quickly become inseparable. Soon enough, Louise has begun calling her Miaand, at first playfully, then in earnest, introducing Sally as her daughter to a growing circle of friends.

By turns enthralled with the possibility of a new identity in Mexico and troubled by Louise’s magne by @meloplanner

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a day ago

#worldtourismday2026

Back with a #ShelfSafari courtesy of @oldskoolchallengeclub

🗓️September 27 is World Tourism Day
✈️Challenge: Find a book with a recognizable landmark on the cover

This is a chance to rummage through your shelves, look at your books in a different way, maybe think about the people, places and issues that make up the wider world beyond our shelves💕

⁉️This or That
✈️Fly or 🚗 road trip or 🛳️cruise
🗓️Long weekend get away or week away
🌴Tropical destination or ⛰️ mountain hike

🌎Since 1980, the United Nations World Tourism Organization has celebrated World Tourism Day as international observances on September 27. This date was chosen as on that day in 1970, the Statutes of the UNWTO were adopted. This day is also the day when the peak tourism season in the Northern Hemisphere meets the peak tourism season in the Southern Hemisphere.[1] The adoption of these Statutes is considered a milestone in global tourism.[2] The purpose of this day is to raise awareness on the role of tourism within the international community and to demonstrate how it affects social, cultural, political and economic values worldwide.

#oldskoolchallengeclub #shelfsafari by @meloplanner

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2 days ago

Fun day in Virginia Beach💕. When on vacation, find a book fair!

It goes to 4pm if you are in the area @virginiabookfair

And then a libation at Waterman’s! Delicious 🍸

⁉️QOTD: what your cocktail or mocktail, go to!

#bookfair #smokedpeachcobbler by @meloplanner

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3 days ago

📚Book Review

🪦We Already Dug The Grave by Emma C Wells
🪦Genre: Southern Gothic Thriller
🪦Location: Tennessee
🪦416p
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

How one night can change your life…

I like a gothic thriller, they tend to have that great atmospheric tension, a spooky feel and well it is the start of spooky season.

Set in Tennessee, with some woowoo aunties, tea leaves and tinctures that can cure your worst problems or bury your secrets.

I am fascinated with the idea of tea leaves, so this definitely caught my eye. And a family of women a with generational curse of bad men!

I am not quite sure how I feel about the ending, that is what has me stuck on this rating. Maybe more 3.5, but there was a point where I predicted the villain but I am not sure I liked how it ended or how I feel about it.

Thank you @poisonedpenpress and @netgalley for the opportunity to read this ebook💕

⁉️QOTD: it is Friday!! What are you doing today/tonight/this weekend?

#WeAlreadyDugTheGrave #PoisonedPenPress #NetGalley

📚Blurb
Milly can’t divine the future anymore, and maybe that’s a good thing. Lately, her life has been bleak enough, she doesn’t need the now-silent tea leaves to tell her. Meanwhile, her estranged younger sister thrives miles away in a shiny new life with a shiny new marriage. Milly doesn’t blame Francis for wanting nothing to do with her. Not after what happened in that Tennessee meadow a decade before.

But when Francis shows up on Milly’s doorstep with a black eye and a plea for help – Milly can’t say no. Especially when the tea leaves are finally crystal clear: if the sisters don’t kill Francis’s husband, he’ll kill her.

And if they’re going to plot a murder, the sisters have no choice but to return to the one place they’d left behind. A place where another body – and a multitude of secrets – were buried. Because this isn’t the first time the sisters have needed to dispose of a bad man. In fact, they might be pretty good at it by @meloplanner

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4 days ago

📚Want to go on a date? A book date?

No apps, no swiping, let you book shelf do the match making!😉

This #DateWithABook challenge is brought to you by @oldskoolchallengeclub

Join in the fun! Using book titles, tell us:

💘Who was your date with?
📍Where did you meet?
⏰What time was your rendezvous?
👗What did you wear?
💬What did you talk about?
🥂Will there be a second date?

My answers:
I went on a date with A Spy, we met In Saigon, when the August Moon was up, I wore All The Dangerous Things, we talked about The Most Fun We Ever Had, will there be a second date probably When The Cranes Fly South💕

⁉️QOTD: do you remember your first date? Anything awkward, romantic, things best forgotten?

AOTD: trying to remember my first date, not sure if my 7th grade meeting at the bowling alley while our parents bowled counts, there was pinball and our fingers might have brushed😮

Tagging a few friends to see what their date would be like, no pressure, join the fun if you’d like!

#oldskoolchallenge #oldskoolchallengeclub by @meloplanner

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5 days ago

🎧Review

🎧Her First Lie by @lucindaberryauthor
🎧Genre: Psychological Thriller
🎧Prequel to The Perfect Child
🎧9hr 28 min, 278p
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Perfectly unhinged is what Lucinda Berry does!
At first I was like 4⭐️ because there are things I felt like no I don’t think that aligns with The Perfect Child and then I discussed the book with a fellow reader and the dots connected, the connections connected and instead it became diabolical genius!

I get this is a prequel written after The Perfect Child, but connecting parts of The Perfect Child to the aftermath of Her First Lie🤯

All I can think is gurl you saw some nasty business in your line of work before writing these creep you out thrillers!

If you have not jumped on the Lucinda Berry bandwagon yet, what are you waiting for?

⁉️QOTD: have you read/listen to The Perfect Child, prequel and sequel? Or have you read any of her other books? I have been on a binge of her this month!

#poisonedpenpress #lucindaberryauthor #herfirstlie

📚Blurb
In this chilling prequel to The Perfect Child, USA Today bestselling author Lucinda Berry plunges readers into the dark origins of a family’s secrets, where good intentions pave the road to unspeakable acts and a mother’s love might be the deadliest inheritance of all.

Becky Watson learned early that trust is a weapon and secrets are survival. From foster homes to abandoned backroads, she and her childhood confidant Orion have buried more than just memories. Now, as a college freshman, Becky’s harboring her most dangerous secret yet: her newborn daughter, Janie.

Desperation drives Becky to contact her estranged grandmother, Lillian. She swoops in like a guardian angel, but her salvation comes with a poisoned price tag. Behind Lillian’s nurturing facade lurks a web of generational secrets. As buried truths claw their way to the surface, Becky faces an impossible choice: sacrifice her daughter or herself to break a twisted family legacy. by @meloplanner

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6 days ago

📚Book Review

🇭🇷The Moon Tavern by Kurt Johnson and Stephanie Hansen
⛵️Genre: Contemporary Lit, Love Story
🇭🇷Location: Croatia
⛵️363p
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What a lovely story! I loved reading a book set in Croatia, now I want to go there!

Lots of tropes:
Found family
Female friendship
He falls first

Thoroughly enjoyed the storyline, love that this will he the first in a series!

The FMC, Vesna, has a sad story of loss and abandonment, but her story arc is beautiful and brings closure.

Love all the fun Minnesota references. And all the delicious looking recipes. I don’t know if I should put this on my book shelf or with my cookbooks!

⁉️QOTD: have you ever sailed? Have you been to Croatia? Or what are you reading today?

#MinnesotaAuthors #TheMoonTavern #BookReview

The Moon Tavern takes the reader on a romantic and culinary journey through the Islands of Croatia, where dark family secrets are revealed, quirky friends and relatives are found, and love is discovered.

Vesna, or Ves, is a cookbook writer from Minneapolis who travels to the remote, exotic island of Lastovo off Croatia’s Mediterranean coast to reconnect with her biological grandmother. She’d been adopted as a young child after her parents died in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. Ves is also fleeing a frayed relationship with her live-in partner, Reed.

In Lastovo, she meets Dinko, a single, handsome, and wealthy vineyard owner, and his cute daughter Mia. With his help with the translation, Ves discovers her biological family’s history and the dark secrets of what happened during the war. Romance, travel, and cooking ensue. She ultimately learns what matters most to her: simplicity in life, closeness with family, and someone to share love with. And, of course, food! by @meloplanner

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7 days ago

📚Book Review

🇮🇹Murder In Rome bt @tawilliamsbooks
🇮🇹Genre: Cozy Mystery
🇮🇹Location: Italy
🇮🇹258p
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you @netgalley for the ebook copy of Book 15 in the Armstrong & Oscar series.

I so enjoy this series because they are set around Italy, I mean you say Italy and I am in!

The characters are true to themselves, always love the furry sidekick, both he and his owner are always distracted by the pretty ladies! Even his new wife gets a little jealous.

You get an old castle with hidden tunnels, haunted armor, plenty with motive for the first murder, but then there’s two, oh wait there’s three and eeks another attempt. Closed room, a puzzler whodunnit!

⁉️QOTD: what is your favorite pasta dish?

#MurderInRome #TAWilliamsAuthor #BookReview by @meloplanner

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8 days ago