Thursday, January 8, 2026
Review - From Here to the Great Unknown
AUTHORS: Riley Keough and Lisa Marie Presley
NARRATORS: Riley Keough, Lisa Marie Presley, and Julia Roberts
RATING: ★★★
Summary (from Goodreads): In 2022, Lisa Marie Presley asked her daughter to help finally finish her long-gestating memoir.
A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved and grieved.
Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, laid in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about smashing golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About getting dragged screaming out of the bathroom as she ran towards his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with her mother, getting sent to school after school, always kicked out, always in trouble. About her singular, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about being married to Michael Jackson, what they shared in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present grief. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother’s wish to reveal these memories, incandescent and painful, to the world.
To make her mother known.
REVIEW: Lisa Marie Presley was only a couple of years older than me, so I grew up hearing her name often on television and reading about her in newspapers and magazines. Like everyone else, I imagine, I got the impression she must have led a very tumultuous life, but I never realized just how bad it was until I listened to her daughter, Riley Keough, tell her story in this audiobook. Let me just say...it will break your heart.
I can't imagine being the daughter of Elvis Presley, and it was very eye-opening learning more about him and his personality. As is always the case, what you see on TV can be entirely different from firsthand witness accounts, and there was so much that shocked me - not just about Elvis but the whole Presley family. The audiobook has three narrators - Lisa Marie Presley (from some old tape recordings), actress Julia Roberts (as Lisa Marie Presley), and Riley Keough (as herself). I enjoyed listening to all three of them, especially Riley, who is very softspoken. You can hear the pain in her voice as she describes losing her younger brother, Ben, to suicide and Lisa Marie to her addictions, and coming from a family of addicts, I know this pain all too well, so that really hit home with me.
Overall, I would recommend this book to everyone, but it does have a lot of bad language, so consider yourself warned. I feel like I should also mention there are several topics in this book that might be triggers for some people, including abortion, suicide, and drug addiction.
Tuesday, January 6, 2026
Top Ten Tuesday - Best Books I Read in 2025
Hello, dear readers! Happy Tuesday and HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope 2026 has gotten off to a wonderful start for you. Today's prompt from Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl is the best books I read in 2025. Well, I read so many great books last year that I couldn't possibly narrow it down to just ten. All of these were audiobooks except for The Shippers and Story of My Life. The images below are linked to each book's Goodreads page so just click on an image if you want to learn more about the book. Were any of these on your favorites list?
Monday, January 5, 2026
Review: A Chance for the Newcomer
AUTHOR: Lisa Carter
RATING: ★★★★
Summary (from Goodreads): She’s stirring things up…
A big-city chef. A small-town single dad.
And matchmakers with marriage in mind…
Chef Kara Lockwood didn’t think changing a small-town diner’s menu would cause a boycott, but the locals sure do love their apple pie—especially fire chief Will MacKenzie. Kara’s not sure she and the single father can ever learn to live peacefully as neighbors. But even as they clash over pastries, local matchmakers and Will’s little boy are determined to bring their stubborn hearts together.
REVIEW: This was a great little story that I was able to read in one day. I loved the two main characters, Will and Kara, and their backstories really added to the emotional depth of the plot. I also loved the secondary characters, especially precious little Maddox and Kara’s foster mom (the barbecue queen). I would happily recommend this book to everyone.
Friday, January 2, 2026
Review - Goal, Motivation, and Conflict
AUTHOR: Debra Dixon
RATING: ★★★★
Summary (from Goodreads): Goal, motivation, and conflict are the foundation of everything that happens in the story world. Using charts, examples, and movies, the author breaks these key elements down into understandable components and walks the reader through the process of laying this foundation in his or her own work.
Learn what causes sagging middles and how to fix them, which goals are important, which aren’t and why, how to get your characters to do what they need for your plot in a believable manner, and how to use conflict to create a good story. GMC can be used not only in plotting, but in character development, sharpening scenes, pitching ideas to an editor, and evaluating whether an idea will work.
Be confident your ideas will work before you write 200 pages.
Plan a road map to keep your story on track.
Discovery why your scenes aren’t working and what to do about it.
Create characters that editors and readers will care about.
REVIEW: This book has been recommended to me by several of my author friends over the past few years, and I finally got around to reading it. It's very thorough, and Debra explains goal, motivation, and conflict in a way that's easy to understand. I'm glad I purchased this book, especially now that I'm writing again, and I would recommend it to any other authors who might be struggling in their writing journey.
Thursday, January 1, 2026
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Wishing you all a happy and blessed new year!
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