WWW Wednesday | What Am I Reading This Week- 1/20/2021?

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

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I’m still pacing my marathon trail – keeping up and not getting lost.

My reading is going quick, but I am managing to get books read and enjoy them as well as write up reviews. I hit a little snag this week with Family by Owen Mullen. I don’t care for crime fiction and this is exactly what this book is. Gangs, violence, sex – all wrapped up in a twisted tale that sets women back about 100 years. I don’t think I’ll say that in my review since it is a blog tour book for Rachel’s Random Resources, but I may mention that women are exploited or some such word that is the opposite of empowered.

I’m starting Prodigal Son today by Gregg Hurwitz. It has gotten some fantastic reviews, so I’m hoping I see in it what others have. It sounds interesting at any rate.

Over the weekend, I also read Make Up Break Up by Lily Menon. At first I found the female lead to be incredibly annoying so much so that I considered DNFing it, but I pushed through and discovered there is a reason she is that way. So the book ended on a positive note for me. It has gotten a lot of meh reviews but I gave it 4-stars with the warning that that main character is something to be tolerated.

Next, I switch gears in a big way to a YA Humor genre book, Bad Habits by Flynn Meaney for The Write Reads blog tour. I hope it really is funny after my two intense thrillers.

So, that’s my reading week. What does yours look like?

Prodigal Son by Gregg Hurwitz

• Genre: Mystery/Thriller
• Publication Date : January 26, 2021
• Print Length: 432 pgs
• Publisher : St. Martins Press

Book Description

Forced into retirement, Evan Smoak gets an urgent request for help from someone he didn’t even suspect existed—in Prodigal Son, the next New York Times bestselling Orphan X book from Gregg Hurwitz.

As a boy, Evan Smoak was pulled out of a foster home and trained in an off-the-books operation known as the Orphan Program. He was a government assassin, perhaps the best, known to a few insiders as Orphan X. He eventually broke with the Program and adopted a new name—The Nowhere Man—and a new mission, helping the most desperate in their times of trouble. But the highest power in the country has made him a tempting offer—in exchange for an unofficial pardon, he must stop his clandestine activities as The Nowhere Man. Now Evan has to do the one thing he’s least equipped to do—live a normal life. 

But then he gets a call for help from the one person he never expected. A woman claiming to have given him up for adoption, a woman he never knew—his mother. Her unlikely request: help Andrew Duran—a man whose life has gone off the rails, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, bringing him to the deadly attention of very powerful figures. Now a brutal brother & sister assassination team are after him and with no one to turn to, and no safe place to hide, Evan is Duran’s only option. But when the hidden cabal catches on to what Evan is doing, everything he’s fought for is on the line—including his own life.

Family by Owen Mullen

• Genre: Crime Fiction
• Print Length: 429 pgs
• Publisher: Boldwood Books
• Publication Date: January 21, 2021

Book Description:

Family – might be the death of you…

The Glass family business is crime, and they’re good at what they do. Vengeance took Luke Glass behind bars – but now he’s free and he’s never going back. Luke wants out of the gangster life – all he has to do is convince his family to let him go.

His brother holds the reins of the South London underworld in his brutal hands – nobody tells Danny Glass no and expects to live – not even DCI Oliver Stanford, bent copper and one of the Met’s rising stars. The way Danny sees it, his younger brother and sister Nina owe him everything. The price he demands is loyalty, and a war with their arch enemy gives him the leverage he needs to tie Luke to the family once more.

Luke can’t see a way out, until Danny commits a crime so terrible it can’t be forgiven. Love turns to hate when secrets are unearthed which pit brother against brother. Left with no choice but to choose a side, Nina holds the fate of the family in her hands. 

In the Glass family, Owen Mullen has created a crime dynasty to rival the Richardsons and the Krays. Heart-pounding, jaw-dropping with non-stop action, Family is perfect for fans of Martina Cole, Kimberley Chambers and Mandasue Heller.

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Make Up Break Up by Lily Menon

• Genre: RomCom
• Print Length: 327 pgs
• Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
• Publication Date: February 2, 2021

Book Description

Love, romance, second chances, fairy-tale endings…these are the things Annika Dev believes in. Her app, Make Up, has been called the “Google Translate for failing relationships.” 

High efficiency break-ups, flashy start-ups, penthouses, fast cars…these are the things Hudson Craft believes in. His app, Break Up, is known as the “Uber for break-ups.” It’s wildly successful—and anathema to Annika’s life philosophy.

Which wouldn’t be a problem if they’d gone their separate ways after that summer fling in Las Vegas, never to see each other again. Unfortunately for Annika, Hudson’s moving not just into her office building, but into the office right next to hers. And he’ll be competing at the prestigious EPIC investment pitch contest: A contest Annika needs to win if she wants to keep Make Up afloat. As if it’s not bad enough seeing his irritatingly perfect face on magazine covers when her own business is failing. As if knowing he stole her idea and twisted it into something vile—and monumentally more successful—didn’t already make her stomach churn.

As the two rival app developers clash again and again—and again—Annika finds herself drawn into Hudson Craft’s fast-paced, high velocity, utterly shallow world. Only, from up close, he doesn’t seem all that shallow. Could it be that everything she thought about Hudson is completely wrong? Could the creator of Break Up teach her what true love’s really about?

Bad Habits by Flynn Meaney

• Genre: Humorous Fiction (YA)
• Print Length: 331 pgs
• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication Date: February 11, 2021

Book Description

Alex is a rebel with a purple fauxhawk and biker boots.

St Mary’s Catholic School is a strict boarding school where she’s currently trapped.

Despite trying everything she can to get expelled, she’s still stuck with the nuns, the prudish attitude and the sexism. 

Fed up with life inside the hallowed halls of St. Mary’s, Alex decides to take matters into her own hands. She’s going to stage the school’s first ever production of The Vagina Monologues. 

Which may be a challenge, as no one else at St Mary’s can even bear to say the word ‘vagina’ out loud…

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Don’t forget to tell to me about the book(s) you are reading this week (in the comments). ✨ I love hearing about them. ❤️