February Reading Recap
February Reading Recap: 6 Books I Read this Month
By: Brittany Shields
I returned to the mean this month with having read 6 books. I probably wouldn’t have even gotten that many but I took a little trip to Florida for a conference and was able to read a lot on the plane and in the airport.
Three of these books are new releases for 2025.
I crossed another book off my Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge.
Two qualified for prompts on the Shelf Reflection’s 2025 Reading Challenge.
Two were on my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2025.
One was on my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2024.
Overall it was a good month of reading. All of these books were 4-5 stars!
I’m looking forward to another month of reading, but it’s March and that means March Madness and all things basketball are unleashing on the TV (s) in my house and I’m not sure how much time there will be for reading. I might have to spend more time on my other hobby— cross stitching— which I can do while watching games.
Oh, the rhythms of life, amiright?
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1. Ace, Marvel, Spy by Jenni L. Walsh
Genre: Historical Fiction
[Fulfilled ‘A book with a title containing a series of three’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat these two imposters just the same”
“When we’re forty, love, we’ll look back and realize we have everything we’ve ever wanted.”
You’re telling me there was a tennis champion who ALSO wrote comics for Marvel who ALSO was an international spy during WWII?! How did I not know about Alice Marble?!
Of course I want to get this story.
The premise of this book is awesome. However, the execution of it was a little lacking. Especially in the first half of the book.
Read my full review to get more plot details and explanations of what was missing, what I liked, what I didn’t like, and what my ultimate recommendation is.
2. Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
[Fulfilled ‘A book with a new mom’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2025 Reading Challenge]
[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2025]
I enjoyed McAllister’s book Wrong Place, Wrong Time, but had written in that review that I probably wouldn’t read any more of her books because of all the f-words. Well here I am. I read another one. I apparently didn’t remember my own advice.
Gillian’s comment on Goodreads for this book is “a love story set in a hostage situation.”
We have a couple different timelines (before/after) the hostage situation where Cam discovers her husband has taken people hostage and kills two of them before disappearing. She never got any answers and now we’re seven years later and just as she thinks she may be ready to move on she gets an anonymous text with coordinates to meet.
Read my full review to get more plot details, see what I liked most about the book, read my criticisms, check out my obligatory ‘words I learned’ section, get my ultimate recommendation, and see what other book I would recommend that’s similar to this one.
3. Heist Royal (Thieves’ Gambit #2) by Kayvion Lewis
Genre: YA
[Fulfilled ‘The second or fifth book in a series’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2025 Reading Challenge]
“Two hundred square feet of booze, luck, loss, and temptation… secrets, hidden currency, and danger.”
Thieves’ Gambit was a fun read for me and so was this one, which takes up 6 months after the first book! It has the same action from start to finish with several different settings from Brazil to New Orleans Mardi Gras to Antarctica to Monte Carlo to Tokyo to South Africa.
It’s got the same Ocean’s Eleven heist vibes as they go through another gambit of stealing valuable things. I think it’s called Heist Royale because a large chunk of it takes place at a casino where they have to cheat the system to earn a certain amount of victor chips. So it also has the movie ‘21’ vibes as well.
Read my full review to see more details about the plot, comments about the suspension of reality and character interactions, content advisory, and my recommendation.
4. Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson
Genre: Fiction/ Historical Fiction
[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2025]
“to tell your story was to experience a kind of freedom…”
“This was the true miracle of life, he thought. No so much to be born as to bear up under what comes your way. To find a way forward. To embrace what was good.”
This one was hard to put down. It is a well-crafted story that explores grief and trauma and the way family history shapes our identities.
I have not read Wilkerson’s debut novel, the highly rated novel called Black Cake, but it seems like similar themes probably flow through both books.
The book begins in 2000 as we witness the tragic home invasion of the Freeman house in Massachusetts where not only their cherished family heirloom (a jar thrown by an enslaved potter in the 1800s) is broken but ten-year-old Ebony’s brother Baz is shot and killed at the young age of fifteen.
The spotlight, then, shines ever brighter as the twentieth anniversary of Baz’s death is on the horizon and Ebby is shockingly stood up on her wedding day with no communication of her would-be husband. This sends her down a new path where she has to confront what still haunts her about her past.
Check out my full review to get more plot details and reflections on the jar— Old Mo— that is basically its own character in the book, read some thoughts on the subtle alternative narrative I discovered in the book, read what gave me ‘all the feels’ and to get access to a list of book club discussion questions I put together for anyone interested.
5. A Chain of Pearls (Martha’s Vineyard Murders #1) by Raemi A. Ray
Genre: Mystery
I didn’t have much to go off of with this book. This was Ray’s debut novel so I didn’t really know about her or what to expect.
Overall, I wouldn’t say this book knocked my socks off, but it was a decent read— more of a cozy mystery.
Kyra’s mother passed away when she was young. Her dad dealt with the grief by investing heavily in his global journalistic work, leaving Kyra to live with an aunt in London. They’ve had a strained relationship ever since. Then Kyra learns that her dad died in a boat accident on the Martha’s Vineyard island.
When she arrives to deal with his affairs she sees that he may not have really been retired, but actually working on a story unfolding on the island. It may be that his accident was actually a murder. She can’t restore her relationship with her dad anymore, but she can finish what he started.
Read my full review to see what I thought worked and didn’t work, read the content advisory, and to get my ultimate recommendation.
6. The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell
Genre: Non-Fiction
[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2024]
I enjoyed Montell’s book, Cultish, even though there were some problematic areas because I thought there were some really interesting and important things to think about. I think my conclusion for this book is about the same.
I guess I was a little surprised by all the negative reviews for this book. Probably because I wasn’t coming into this book expecting a scholarly work or even a perspective I completely agreed with. I felt like it met my expectations.
Using a lot of personal stories and confessions, she explores a dozen different cognitive biases we mostly unknowingly implement when we make decisions, including confirmation bias, sunk-cost fallacy, proportionality bias, the IKEA effect, and illusory truth effect.
Even if this isn’t a scientific textbook about cognitive biases, I think it’s still a great and easy book to read that challenges you to think about the ways you think.
Check out my full review to get the entire list of biases she covers, see what things resonated with me, hear my major and minor criticisms, and gain access to the book club discussion questions I put together for anyone interested.
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