Bogormen

Title: Identity
Author: Nora Roberts
Genre: chick-lit
Rating: 4/5
# pages: Audiobook ~15hours
Date read: July, 2023

Former Army brat Morgan Albright has finally planted roots in a friendly neighborhood near Baltimore. Her friend and roommate Nina helps her make the mortgage payments, as does Morgan's job as a bartender. But after she and Nina host their first dinner party—attended by Luke, the flirtatious IT guy who'd been chatting her up at the bar—her carefully built world is shattered. The back door glass is broken, cash and jewelry are missing, her car is gone, and Nina lies dead on the floor.

Soon, a horrific truth emerges: It was Morgan who let the monster in. "Luke” is actually a cold-hearted con artist named Gavin who targets a particular type of woman, steals her assets and identity, and then commits his ultimate goal: murder.

What the FBI tells Morgan is beyond chilling. Nina wasn't his type. Morgan is. Nina was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. And Morgan's nightmare is just beginning. Soon she has no choice but to flee to her mother's home in Vermont. While she struggles to build something new, she meets another man, Miles Jameson. He isn't flashy or flirtatious, and his family business has deep roots in town. But Gavin is still out there hunting new victims, and he hasn't forgotten the one who got away.


Pretty stereotypical Nora Roberts. But I like stereotypical Nora Roberts, so that suited me just fine :-) I really like that with the obvious exception of the "bad guy", people are generally just genuinely nice in Nora Roberts novels. It makes for pleasant reading.

I really enjoyed reading about Morgan's job at the resort. I always find it fascinating to read when people are passionate about their work, and this really shone through here. I don't know if Nora Roberts has bartended herself, or if it's all made up for the book, but it worked for me regardless.

Not sure how realistic the bad guy was here, but it worked in the context of its own universe, so that's fine by me.

Title: The Name Curse
Author: Brooke Burroughs
Genre: Chick-lit
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 333
Date read: July 2023

Ever since her father died, Bernie’s life has been stagnant. When concerned friends and family suggest she join a hike through Alaska to gain new perspective, Bernie reluctantly agrees to go, even though she’s never been the adventurous type, unlike her namesake, Great-Aunt Bernice.

Matthew is a struggling screenwriter who needs a week off the grid to gain some inspiration for a new project and to process the reappearance of his absent father.

When the two meet at the trailhead, it’s annoyance at first sight. He’s dismayed to discover that he’ll have to share a tent with Bernie, who doesn’t know the first thing about camping, while she finds he’s a little too into “roughing it” to be a reasonable human being. But as they’re forced to hike through the wilderness together, their relationship becomes a surprising source of empathy and inspiration…and maybe other feelings too. Can the two adversaries find the path to breaking the curse of family expectations—and each other?


Can't quite make up my mind what I thought of this book. It had a strong start, but then sagged at around the mid-way point, and never fully gained traction again. Thus it took me MUCH longer to finish that it ought to have done.

I think one of my issues was that I had expected the Denali hike to take up a much larger part of the book than it actually did - this is NOT a "book about a hike" it's a "book about the people you meet on a hike"... which is well and good, but wasn't what I was looking for.

I did like the characters though, so never considered giving up on the book. It was just a more run-of-the-mill chick-lit than I had hoped for when I set out.