As you know, I’m not reading across the US in 2026 (and if you didn’t you can find my reasons here) but as the last act of my six year odyssey reading a book from every US state each year, here are a couple of the books from the tail end of the 2025 challenge that I have not yet written about for today’s recommendsday.
New Uses for Old Boyfriends by Beth Kendrick
Delaware is always a hard state to do, so after enjoying the first book in the Black Dog Bay series so much that it was a BotW last year, in the absence of anything else from Delaware I came back for book 2 this year. This is a fresh romance story, but linked to the previous one in that the characters from that pop up again. Our heroine this time is Lila who is back in the town she grew up in after her marriage imploded and career as shopping channel host came to a screeching halt. Back home she finds that her family’s money is gone and her mum is in denial about this. The only reason I didn’t like this as much as the first one is that I found Lila (and her mum even more so) a bit grating at the start, she’s such a princess and that’s really not my thing, but the character growth was so good that it was worth reading through my initial irritation! I am definitely going to be reading book three!
Savage Run by C J Box
This second book in the series sees Joe investigating after a massive explosion in his patch which the police say has killed a notorious environmental activist in a stunt gone wrong. But he’s soon discovering clues that seem to point to a conspiracy. These books are right on the edge of what I can deal with in terms of thrillers – the plots are amazing but they’re very violent and the only reason I can stick it out is because I know that it’s a long series so Joe has to make it to the end of the book alive!
Renewing Forever by Kelly Jensen*
This is a later in life second chance romance between two men who were childhood friends but whose relationship broke down just during the summer after high school. It also has as side order of trying to figure out what to do with an old resort in the Poconos for one half of the duo and a difficult relationship with a parent (and some associated money issues for the other). I enjoyed reading it once I got into it, but it was a bit of a case of why didn’t they just talk to each other at some point. I know that for Book Reasons they had to not do it, but 30 years is a lot of stubbornness!
And there you are. That’s the lot from this year, but here’s the equivalent post from last year as well.
Happy Humpday!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 