Roger's Reads

Author & Book Reviewer

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Welcome to Roger’s Reads!

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Roger Hyttinen avatarBeing a lover of books, I started this site as a companion to my BookTube Channel “Rogers Reads” and as a way to chronicle my reading journey and help spread the love for books that I enjoyed.  This site is a place for me to review books that range from Young Adult fiction to Fantasy to LGBT Romance.  I do have somewhat ecclectic reading tastes though Fantasy and YA Fantasy are my most read genres at the moment.

If you’d like to learn more about me, click the About Roger link on top of the page.  If you have a book you’d like me to review, please check my Review Policy link first on top of the page.

Thank you so much for stopping by.  Grab a cuppa, put up your feet and browse through some of the reviews.  Who knows?  You just might come across your next epic read.

Happy Reading!

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Review of Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

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Under the Whispering Door book cover

The first time you share tea, you are a stranger. The second time you share tea, you are an honored guest. And the third time you share tea, you become family.

TJ Klune is one of my favorite authors, so I was super excited when this book came to my attention. Once again, he did not disappoint.

Under the Whispering Door is a heartwarming contemporary fantasy about finding yourself. It follows an unlikable, ruthless and driven lawyer named Wallace Price, who is more than a bit surprised (but mostly shocked) to find himself at his own funeral. Apparently, Wallace has died and is none too happy about it. This becomes even more evident when a reaper named Mei shows up to take Wallace to the next stage of his journey.

But instead of taking him to the afterlife, the Reaper brings him to a small tea shop in a remote village called Charon’s Crossing when he meets a charming man named Hugo, the proprietor who is also the ferryman of souls. Hugo’s job is to help souls get ready for crossing over, which turns out not to be such an easy chore for the angry and bitter Wallace Price. But, of course, anger and denial like Wallace’s isn’t anything new for Hugo — he’s seen it before. But he definitely has his work cut out for him as he attempts to lead Wallace out of the darkness and into a more gentle understanding of the mysteries of life.

So with Hugo’s gentle guidance — as well as that from Mei (the Reaper) and Hugo’s ghostly and mischievous grandad Nelson, Wallace begins to understand all that he missed from life, and his outlook slowly begins to change — especially once he learns that it’s never too late to start anew.

It was so delightful to see Wallace’s heart begin to warm as the other charming and quirky characters slowly got under his skin. I loved seeing him grow as a person, and as he did, the more likable and relatable he became. I was surprised by how much I grew to care about this formerly cruel and despicable character, and my heart warmed to see him form meaningful relationships with the other characters in the book (including Apollo, the ghost dog) and witness him making a genuine effort to become a better person.

The author handled some pretty tough topics in the book, such as death, PTSD, suicide, and grief, all of which were handled compassionately and delicately by the author. But additionally, the author’s familiar wit, humor, and charm shine through, resulting in a beautiful heartfelt story that is both moving and thought-provoking. It’s a hard-hitting story that’s at times sad and raw, but that teaches some valuable lessons as the plot unfolds.

All in all, Under the Whispering Door is a delightful heart-tugger of a story about grief, regret, death, love, loneliness, acceptance but most of all, about found family. It’s the kind of story that causes you to laugh out loud in some places and brings a tear to your eyes in others, and I still find myself ruminating and contemplating it many days later. I love a good story about hope, redemption, and second chances, and that’s what we get here with this gentle tale.

As a reader, I found this to be an utterly rewarding journey. There’s also a sweet romance that was the cherry on top of this magical story. Oh, and that ending — it was perfect!

A huge thank you to Netgalley for providing a review copy of this book.

The book will be released on September 21 but is available for preorder from online retailers.

Link to Preorder from Amazon

Review of The Twin Paradox by Charles Wachter

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Twin Paradox book coverBlurb

With ten years passing for every three minutes on a remote stretch of Texas coast, planes fall out of the sky, evolved species are on the hunt, and people die inside one of the most vicious ecosystems ever grown—all a result of the government’s efforts to slow down time.

A lot can happen in ten years. That’s the point. Governments are always racing for supremacy, for scientific breakthroughs, for technological advantages—and these things take time.

Until something goes wrong.

With the grounded yet massive world building of READY PLAYER ONE, thrilling scientific questions of JURASSIC PARK, and the time-bending teen drama of BEFORE I FALL, Wachter’s THE TWIN PARADOX is a brilliantly plotted tale that is both intimate and massive, relentless yet deliberate, and explores the themes of self-acceptance, self- confidence, and natural selection in a richly hued and unforgettable world. Ultimately the eternal question of Nature versus Nurture is boiled down into this fast-paced thriller told over the course of five days and culminates in one single question:

Do we get to choose who we are?

Review

I love mind-bendy books, especially those with time travel, time manipulation, or multiple timelines, so I was excited when this book came to my attention. This Young Adult Techno-Thriller follows a group of high school kids in the Honors program who one day learn that they have been cloned from the DNA of history’s most brilliant minds such Isaac Newton, Leonardo de Vinci, Martin Luther King, and Einstein. The children are then sent to a secret facility in Texas – a place where time moves at different speeds (ten years pass for every three minutes spent inside of the dome). What follows is a whirlwind of shocking revelations that lead our protagonists into a world they could have only imagined. Because unbeknownst to them, they are pawns in a much larger game — a game involving governments who are trying to win a dangerous race. He who controls time, wins.

Also unbeknownst to the kids, they are not the only ones who have been cloned: a rival government has cloned some of the world’s deadliest villains to help stop the US Government’s progress — and that includes stopping the kids. Oh, and if that isn’t enough, the science has run amok.

This story was non-stop action, barely giving you enough time to catch your breath between scenes, and the author wastes no time in plunging the reader into the middle of this frenetically-paced wild roller coaster ride. What I initially thought was a sci-fi story quickly turned out to be much more. It’s a mind-bending, gripping techno-thriller that even dips its toes into the horror category (there are a couple of gory and cringeworthy scenes, but they’re minimal). This book has a bit of everything: time travel, time paradoxes, secret government experiments, cloning, dark holes/vortexes/wormholes, murder, espionage, secrets, manipulation, dark and dangerous schemes, biological warfare, betrayal, mutated creatures/monsters, cannibalism (this was the gory part I mentioned), evil villains and even a bit of magic.

On top of all that, the author gives us one hell of a continuous adventure that ultimately left me shocked, surprised, appalled, and thoroughly entertained. The story has so many pieces and layers that it unravels super fast, and what you think is the truth isn’t — what you think is happening isn’t. The atmosphere is rich with gritty drama and unnerving situations where the thrills and twists dominate — which is precisely what I look for in a thriller. Recommended!

A huge thank you to Netgalley for providing a review copy of this book.

Purchase The Twin Paradox on Amazon

Review of The Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives by Kristin Miller

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Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives coverBlurb:

Meet the trophy wives of Presidio Terrace, San Francisco’s most exclusive–and most deadly–neighborhood in this shrewd, darkly compelling novel from the New York Times bestselling author of In Her Shadow.

Mystery writer Brooke Davies is the new wife on the block. Her tech-billionaire husband, Jack, twenty-two years her senior, whisked her to the Bay Area via private jet and purchased a modest mansion on the same day. He demands perfection, and before now, Brooke has had no problem playing the role of a doting housewife. But as she befriends other wives on the street and spends considerable time away from Jack, he worries if he doesn’t control Brooke’s every move, she will reveal the truth behind their “perfect” marriage.

Erin King, famed news anchor and chair of the community board, is no stranger to maintaining an image–though being married to a plastic surgeon helps. But the skyrocketing success of her career has worn her love life thin, and her professional ambitions have pushed Mason away. Quitting her job is a Hail Mary attempt at keeping him interested, to steer him away from finding a young trophy wife. But is it enough, and is Mason truly the man she thought he was?

Georgia St. Claire allegedly cashed in on the deaths of her first two husbands, earning her the nickname “Black Widow”–and the stares and whispers of her curious neighbors. Rumored to have murdered both men for their fortunes, she claims to have found true love in her third marriage, yet her mysterious, captivating allure keeps everyone guessing. Then a tragic accident forces the residents of Presidio Terrace to ask: Has Georgia struck again? And what is she really capable of doing to protect her secrets?

Review

The story takes a look at what goes on behind the gates of Presidio Terrace, an upscale San Francisco neighborhood for the uber-rich. This reads kind of like a fun 80s melodrama (it made me think of Alexis from Dynasty). We follow three main characters who are married to millionaires:

Georgia St. Claire is known as “The Black Widow” because two of her husbands died under somewhat mysterious circumstances. But she’s engaged once again, this time to a man named Robert whom she claims she loves with all her heart — and the wedding is to take place in a few days. So, will Robert be victim number three?

Erin King is a well-known and somewhat neurotic television news anchor who is quite a prima donna. She’s married to a plastic surgeon who is a major jerk. Regardless, she walks out on her job, deciding that she would simply be a trophy wife to her husband, Mason. She’s also overly obsessed with her appearance, even more so when the attractive Brooke moves into the neighborhood.

Brook Davis is the newcomer to the neighborhood. She’s married to a wealthy man twenty years her senior who appears to be more than a bit controlling. She is a murder mystery writer who is looking for new subject matter for her next novel — and just may have found it in Presidio Terrace.

The three women become fast friends, and we soon learn that there’s a lot more to them than merely being “trophy wives.” Each of them has dark secrets that come to light as the novel progresses, and the author wastes no time plunging the reader into the middle of a scintillating mystery.

The story is told alternating first-person POV through the eyes of each of our three heroines, we witness the shocking events leading up to and following Georgia’s wedding day. The short chapters added to the fast pacing of the story, resulting in an addictive, compelling, and suspenseful tale. There are deep, dark, dangerous secrets to be uncovered and harsh truths for all three ladies to confront.

Though this was a campy story rife with high drama, there’s also an ominous undercurrent of foreboding that runs beneath this creepy, atmospheric tale. That’s what makes this a fun and compulsive read, as the situations worsen and the twists continue. Yes, the characters and the situations are way over-the-top, and that was the fun of this book. I was also blindsided by the ending — a twist that I didn’t see coming.

A wicked, dark, and juicy frenetically paced thriller that hooked me from the very first page. Definitely recommended for those that love their thrillers suffused with a bit of high drama.

This book will be released on July 20, 20201.

A huge thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing/Ballantine Books for providing a review copy of this book.

Review of We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker

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We Begin at the End book coverBlurb

There are two kinds of families: the ones we are born into and the ones we create.

Walk has never left the coastal California town where he grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released.

Duchess is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Her mother, Star, grew up with Walk and Vincent. Walk is in overdrive trying to protect them, but Vincent and Star seem bent on sliding deeper into self-destruction. Star always burned bright, but recently that light has dimmed, leaving Duchess to parent not only her mother but her five-year-old brother. At school the other kids make fun of Duchess―her clothes are torn, her hair a mess. But let them throw their sticks, because she’ll throw stones. Rules are for other people. She’s just trying to survive and keep her family together.

A fortysomething-year-old sheriff and a thirteen-year-old girl may not seem to have a lot in common. But they both have come to expect that people will disappoint you, loved ones will leave you, and if you open your heart it will be broken. So when trouble arrives with Vincent King, Walk and Duchess find they will be unable to do anything but usher it in, arms wide closed.

Chris Whitaker has written an extraordinary novel about people who deserve so much more than life serves them. At times devastating, with flashes of humor and hope throughout, it is ultimately an inspiring tale of how the human spirit prevails and how, in the end, love―in all its different guises―wins.

Review

Wow – what a stellar novel! This is a gripping, character-driven story that unwinds in such unbearable suspense that I couldn’t put it down until the last page. Thirteen-year-old Duchess Day Radley, a self-proclaimed “outlaw,” quickly cemented herself as one of my favorite characters in the book. She’s super feisty, determined, and sharp as a tack, and doesn’t take anyone’s crap. She’s also admirable in that she’ll do anything for her little traumatized brother Robin – especially whatever needs to be done to protect him. In this way (and in others), the story is a powerful look at how far we’d go and what we’d sacrifice for those we love.

Once we’ve been introduced to the story’s main characters, the author wastes no time in plunging us into the middle of a scintillating mystery. What follows is a roller coaster of a story with twists galore, some expected and some not. A wise and painful book in places, the story speaks of authenticity and loss — about how we convince ourselves to make irrevocable choices and mistakes and how these decisions harden us in the process.

I love a good story that pushes the boundaries, and Whitaker does that here in a mesmerizing way with his genuinely remarkable protagonists. The plot intertwines and unravels slowly into an intricate and unnerving tale of lies, secrets, grief, familial drama, heart-breaking motivations, deception, regret, and murder. This is a poignant tale that aches with past and present bruises, and several scenes brought tears to my eyes. The pages flew by for me, culminating in an almost cinematic speedup as the climax builds to its shocking conclusion.

Whitaker’s prose here is flowing, beautiful, dark, and eerily atmospheric, and his complex and multilayered cast of characters convincingly and impressively illustrate the best and worst of humanity. This is definitely the best book I’ve read this year, and I have little doubt that it will stay with me for a long, long time.

Purchase We Begin at the End from Amazon

Review of Where It All Lands by Jennie Wexler

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Where It All Lands coverBlurb:

Stevie Rosenstein has never made a true friend. Never fallen in love. Moved from city to city by her father’s unrelenting job, it’s too hard to care for someone. Trust in anything. The pain of leaving always hurts too much. But she’ll soon learn to trust, to love.

Twice.

Drew and Shane have been best friends through everything. The painful death of Shane’s dad. The bitter separation of Drew’s parents. Through sleepaway camps and family heartache, basketball games and immeasurable loss, they’ve always been there for each other.

When Stevie meets Drew and Shane, life should go on as normal.

But a simple coin toss alters the course of their year in profound and unexpected ways.

Told in dual timelines, debut author Jennie Wexler delivers a heartbreaking and hopeful novel about missed opportunities, second chances, and all the paths that lead us to where we are.

Review:

The story, told in dual timelines, follows two best friends and musicians, Drew and Shane, who make all their decisions by flipping a coin. When a new girl named Stevie shows up at school (also a musical prodigy), they both want to ask her out. So they decide who will pursue Stevie romantically and who will step aside by doing what they always do to make a decision: tossing a coin. What’s interesting about this story, however, is that the first part of the book shows us the result if Drew wins, and the second part portrays the result if Shane wins the toss and how differently the events play out in each situation. The first and second halves are not at all repetitive as the events in the timeline don’t occur the same way the second time around.

The story illustrated how one small decision can change the trajectory of our entire lives and how such a decision branches off into many other ones, thus altering our life in unforeseeable ways. In this way, I found the story to be exceptionally thought-provoking. It causes us to wonder how much of what happens to us is really left to chance and how much is the result of a past decision. I thought it also illustrated how we often can’t really predict or even control the incidents in our lives.

What this really brought home for me is the importance of the choices that we make — and well as those we don’t make — and how those choices affect others in our life. It’s the kind of story that leaves the reader questioning at the end (but in a good way).

Where It All Lands is an exceptionally compelling read that’s not only gripping but kind of heartbreaking in places (the story opens during a scene of a funeral — and we don’t find out whose funeral it is until much later in the book). Readers who go into this expecting a fluffy YA romance may be disappointed as it’s more of a sci-fi speculative story with a romantic undercurrent.

Additionally, there are many hard-hitting themes in the book, such as bullying, challenging family dynamics, parental abandonment, divorce, death, and grief. Hence, parts of the story were pretty heart-wrenching. And though there is undoubtedly a romance aspect to the story, I feel that at its core, the theme of friendship is at the forefront of the narrative.

All in all, I found Where It All Lands to be a riveting coming-of-age journey about the “what-ifs” in our life and feel that it’s well worth the read.

A huge thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced reader copy of this book.

Purchase Where It All Lands on Amazon

Review of Out of Character by Annabeth Albert

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Out of Character Book OcverBlurb:

Jasper Quigley is tired of being everyone’s favorite sidekick. He wants to become the hero of his own life, but that’s not going to happen if he agrees to help out his former best friend turned king of the jocks, Milo Lionetti. High school was miserable enough, thanks, and Jasper has no interest in dredging up painful memories of his old secret crush.

But Milo’s got nowhere else to go. His life is spiraling out of control and he’s looking to turn things back around. Step one? Replace the rare Odyssey cards he lost in an idiotic bet. Step two? Tell his ex-best-friend exactly how he feels—how he’s always felt.

Jasper may be reluctant to reopen old wounds, but he never could resist Milo. There’s a catch, though: if Milo wants his help, he’s going to have to pitch in to make the upcoming children’s hospital charity ball the best ever. But as the two don cosplay for the kids and hunt for rare cards, nostalgia for their lost friendship may turn into something even more lasting…

Review:

Out of Character is an enemies-to-lovers new adult romance set in the same world as Albert’s previous novel, “Unconventionally Yours.” The story is based around a fictional tabletop game called Odyssey and follows our two main characters, Jasper and Milo. Milo has accidentally traded away his brother’s very rare and expensive Odyssey cards and has turned to Jasper to help him get them back. The kicker is that Jasper and Milo used to be best friends until Milo starting hanging out with the jock crowd — the same crowd who bullied Jasper. Jasper has not forgotten how horribly Milo treated him in high school.

However, Jasper reluctantly agrees to help him, and the two men head off to an Odyssey gaming convention where Jasper will try to win back the elusive cards. Of course, neither boy could have guessed that all the time they spend together would result in them falling in love, and in so doing, the author captured perfectly how simultaneously beautiful and daunting it can be to fall for your enemy.

This ended up being a delightful, heartwarming story of two young men who find their way back to either other. The romance between the two of them was perfect, as was their chemistry. I adore romance redemption/second chance stories, and these aspects were exceptionally well done in this novel.

I also loved the colorful ensemble of friends/found family in this book. Albert does this really well, and I was especially delighted to see cameo appearances by several characters from Unconventionally Yours.

All in all, Out of Character is a beautiful story about love and how it can spring up in the most unlikely of places and circumstances. It’s a lovely, heartfelt second-chance nerdy romance with vibrant characters that I loved. I can’t wait to read more by this author.

A huge thank you to Netgalley for providing a review copy of this book.

Purchase Out of Character from Amazon