Nine Perfect Strangers / Liane Moriarty / 453 pages

  I tend to compare an author's current book with others they have written, and I have read.  The characters are well-developed. The story was about nine people attending an upscale health resort that promises a transformation for each person. Each person is there for a different reason. Masha, the resort owner is bizarre and treats each person like a rat in a lab experiment. Her ego is enormous.  There will be no deviation from her plan for each person.
     I did not find this story as engaging as The Husband's Secret or Big, Little Lies.  For that reason I gave it 3 stars. A book club would find lots to discuss since each person attending at the resort was going through so much in their life. I'm sure the amateur psychiatrist in all of us would have a great time analyzing these characters.

The Kiss Quotient / Helen Hoang / 324 pages

Want the steamy romance of Fifty Shades of Grey, but with an actual romantic male lead? Then you need to read The Kiss Quotient. I read this book this past week for the neurodiverse category in the Read Harder Challenge. I was very pleasantly surprised by the engaging plot and characters who completely likable. If you were turned off by Christian Grey's attitude, and want to read something steamy, but with a patient and kind male lead, this is the book I think a lot of us have been waiting for for a long, long time.

Stella is a 30-year old econometrician on the autism spectrum. She delights in crunching numbers and creating algorithms. In Silicon Valley, she has everything except for a boyfriend and children. When her mom pushes her to get out into the dating world, she decides to enlist the help of a male escort who might be able to teach her the finer points of sensuality. Michael is that male escort and is dealing with the aftermath of a father who left the family and a mother whose health has sent her to the hospital multiple times. I completely recommend!