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The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd - It's funny you mentioned not really being into historical fiction because I've read a lot of it lately. The Indigo Girl is the fictionalized account of Eliza Lucas, who lived in South Carolina in the mid 1700s and at the age of 16 was put in charge of her father's three plantations when he goes off to improve his military position. The plantations aren't doing well so Eliza enlists the help of various people to grow the plant that produces indigo. I had mixed feelings about the book...on the one hand, it was fairly well written and I was suitably interested in how events unfolded. OTOH, like you, historical fiction isn't my favorite genre; I find it a bit presumptive when authors assume to know what their RL protagonist was thinking or doing in their spare time. Also, there's more than a whiff of "white savior" in this story (I won't say more so as not to spoil the story) so I was torn between marveling at a strong woman doing "man's" work back in the days before the Revolutionary War and eventually being inducted into SC's Hall of Fame for businesswomen and being uneasy that the fates of the Black characters are, understandably, tied to the actions of Eliza. I'll give this one a solid B.

The Favorite Daughter by Kaira Rouda- So in July, I read Rouda's The Best Day Ever and mostly hated it, though the ending was somewhat satisfying. I decided to give Rouda a second chance...really wish I hadn't. Not sure which book was written first but everything I hated about The Best Day Ever is present in The Favorite Daughter, only with a gender swap. In this book, a mom emerges from a year of mourning for her beloved older daughter (who died in an accident) and is ready to reclaim her position as queen bee in the family. She's going to save her marriage, get her younger daughter through her senior year of high school and get her upscale neighborhood to admire and envy her again. Just like in The Best Day Ever, the story is told in first person by what is ultimately an unreliable--and extremely unlikeable and unrelatable--narrator. But the end of this one didn't have the somewhat satisfying payoff that The Best Day Ever did. Oh, and if all that isn't off-putting enough, the dog dies . F...and I'm striking any further Rouda novels from my future reading lists.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michelle Richardson - Now THIS is more like it! I'd read JoJo Meye's The Giver of Stars a while back and many people said it was derivative of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, telling me to read the latter. So I did and yes, as much as I loved The Giver of Stars, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is just a better, more well-rounded story. Again loosely based on historical events, this is the tale of Cussy Mary Carter, also known as "Bluette" because her skin is naturally a shade of blue. This qualifies her as a "colored" woman back in 1936, in the hills of Kentucky, and she struggles for acceptance in her community while delivering books atop her mule to the hill folk. A, maybe even an A+, and now I want to read the sequel, The Book Woman's Daughter.

Remember Mia by Alexandra Bark - OK, I *really* struggled with this book. A women wakes up after a car accident to discover her infant daughter (Mia) missing and she's considered the main suspect. On the one hand, the tale is masterfully crafted but OTOH, Mia's mom Estelle is a mess even before her accident and her daughter goes missing, so if reading about other folks' mental health struggles, even fictitious folks, is difficult for you, as it is for me, maybe give this one a miss. I saw the reviews on Goodreads were mixed, with the positive ones focusing on the, and I quote, "riveting psychological suspense", and the negative ones saying Estelle is unsympathetic, the writing is repetitive and the author isn't great with descriptive sections. The book was just not enjoyable to me. I'll give it a C only because the psychological suspense really IS riveting but I was also really happy to be done with the book.

Tending Roses by Lisa Wingate - I'm a bad Christian in that I don't read a lot of Christian fiction. It tends to be all "things go wrong, people pray, things are right again!". And TBH, this book in a very broad sense follows that formula. But IMO, it's so much better than the Christian fic I've previously read. A woman moves with her husband and infant son to her grandmother's farm to convince Grandma it's time to move into assisted living. But reading excerpts from her grandmother's journal convinces Kate that Granny is right where she belongs. This is the first in a series; I accidentally picked up book #3 at a garage sale and stopped reading it in the first few pages of the prologue when I discovered it was a sequel. Book #2 doesn't sound like it's the same characters, so I think I'm safe to skip it...but I might not. I thought the author's name was familiar...it wasn't that long ago that I read her book Before We Were Yours, which was about a family with five children living on the Mississippi River who are torn apart when the mom goes to the hospital to deliver twins and strangers swoop in to claim the remaining children and adopt them out as "orphans". I liked that one a lot, I liked this book a lot...A-. The minus is only because Tending Roses was a little sappy in spots...as Christian fiction often is.