Here in New Zealand, Thanksgiving doesn't exist. There are no turkeys on supermarket shelves in November, no Black Friday frenzy (well, mostly), and absolutely no cultural pressure to go around a table listing the things you're grateful for. The Fourth of July is just a Wednesday, or whatever day it lands on, and Memorial Day passes without so much as a barbecue in sight. I've always watched American holidays from the outside, the way you watch a parade through a rainy window  aware of the noise and colour, but not quite part of it. That changed when I went down the Ancestry.com rabbit hole. It started innocently enough, the way all great reading adventures do. One link led to another, one census record to a ship manifest, one name to a date that made my jaw drop. Because there, nestled in my family tree like a well-worn bookmark, was a name I recognised from every American history textbook I'd ever read as a book nerd obsessed with the colonial era: Edward Doty. Th...

Here's a thought that keeps me up at night and trust me, it takes a lot to keep a book devourer like me from her beloved reading time. Somewhere out there, a group of people decided that you shouldn't be allowed to read certain books. That someone, somewhere, sat down and said: "No. That story is too dangerous. That idea is too powerful. That truth is too uncomfortable." And honestly? That's exactly why you need to read them. Banned books aren't banned because they're bad. They're banned because they're brilliant. They ask hard questions. They hold up mirrors we'd rather not look into. They give voices to people who have been told, repeatedly, to stay quiet. And the moment someone tries to take a book off a shelf, it becomes the most important book in the room. The American Library Association reported that in 2025 alone, over 5,600 books were banned from libraries across the United States,  the highest number ever recorded since tracking be...

Book Spotlight: Keep Her Close - Brian O'Rourke - May 2026 This little town seems perfect. Until you start digging… When twelve-year-old Sienna Voss vanishes without trace, three women are pulled into the desperate search for the missing girl. Sienna's mother, Roxanne, will tear up this quiet creek-side town to find her daughter. She felt at home here, trusted her neighbors but has one of them done something unspeakable? Chief of Police Tamsin Drake needs to find Sienna quickly. And not just because she’s a good cop. She’s beginning to suspect the girl’s disappearance is connected to a dark secret she thought she’d buried years ago. Cam-girl Cleo Monroe has a hunch she knows who took Sienna and why. If she’s right, that information could buy her a ticket to a better life. As the search parties fan out and the clock runs down, the three women inexorably close in on the horrifying truth. A truth that only one of them will survive. Keep Her Close,  the chilling psychol...

Review: The Striker - Book #1 Gods of the Game Series - Ana Huang - October 2024 I'll be honest with you Ana Huang and I have had quite the complicated relationship. Her books have been a bit of a mixed bag for me over the years, landing anywhere from absolute favourites to DNFs (did-not-finishes, for those not deep in the bookish rabbit hole). So when I packed my bags for our Readers Retreat in Taupō last week, I finally decided it was time to give The Striker a proper chance. It had been sitting on my shelf since release, quietly judging me every time I walked past. You know that feeling. We've all been there. And oh my goodness  how did it take me this long? I'm so glad I finally cracked the spine on this one, because The Striker completely won me over. At its heart, it's a football romance and when I say football, I do mean soccer, just so we're all on the same page! Our hero, Asher Donovan, is an absolute dreamboat of a soccer champion who has just switched ...

Review: Games Untold - Short Stories - An Inheritance Games Collection - Jennifer Lynn Barnes - November 2024 I've been a Jennifer Lynn Barnes fan for longer than I care to admit it all started back in the early 2000s when I picked up Tattoo and was completely swept away. Since then I've devoured everything she's written, but it's The Inheritance Games universe that truly has my heart. And honestly? Choosing a favourite Hawthorne brother is impossible. Xander's humour has me snorting with laughter, Nash's old-fashioned gentlemanly ways make me swoon, Grayson's fierce loyalty makes me feel so safe, and Jameson oh, Jameson with those romantic gestures and that deliciously mysterious streak. They each hold a little piece of my reader's heart. So when I took  Games Untold off my bookshelf  for the Readers Retreat I attended in Taupo last weekend, I knew exactly how I'd be spending my downtime. Curled up, cup of tea in hand, utterly lost in the Hawthorne...

      Review: After We Fell -  Book #3 After Series - Anna Todd - July 2014 You know that feeling when you pull a book off the shelf that's been sitting there so long it's practically become part of the furniture? That was me with After We Fell by Anna Todd. It had been gathering dust since 2015 ,yes, 2015  and it finally got its moment in the sun last weekend when I packed it for my reader's retreat, determined to tackle one of my chunkiest reads. Reader, I devoured all 848 pages across a Friday afternoon and Saturday. No shame, only pride. Opening this book was like stepping into a time machine. Within a few pages I was right back in Hardin and Tessa's world, and it genuinely felt like no time had passed since I finished the second book all those years ago. There's something wonderfully nostalgic about returning to a series you loved in an earlier chapter of your life, but what made this reread particularly fascinating was how much I had changed in the decad...