Most people are not aware of what their names signify. While most names have no great importance in their meaning, some have very interesting reasons for being chosen. In this book, mothers carefully choose names for their daughters with regard to their future. With names such as Justa and Victoria, it would make sense for great things to happen in their lives. However, just and victorious these women were not, as the women in this family have a strange curse in which they become the opposite of their names. While the most recent girl to be born in the bloodline is "Felicitas," a name promising happiness and fortune, she is very unhappy. But is the chosen name to blame, or something else?

 

Felicitas was born to 17-year-old Angustias, a very carefree, spirited young woman. Angustias left her mother Olvido, an unforgiving woman, after they had gotten into a heated argument. Since then, Felicitas has grown up without a place to call home or any friends as her mother moves from place to place, never settling in one spot.

 

One morning, Felicitas wakes to finally meet her estranged grandmother. She is stern, distant, and…dead. Instead of being the kind, loving, and alive grandmother that Felicitas has longed for, Olvido is a very demanding, inattentive, and irritating ghost. Determined to be rid of the spirit, Felicitas helps her grandmother with her final wishes: convincing her mom to return to her childhood home. What follows is a magical family drama of shedding intergenerational trauma and finding peace with each other.

 

During the 2020 pandemic, the author, Anamely Salgado Reyes, moved in with her mother. While reminiscing over family history, Reyes wrote My Mother Cursed My Name with her families’ memories and emotions as inspiration for this beautiful work of magical realism.  Since the book is about healing family rifts, there are many heartfelt scenes in the book, such as the grandmother's teaching the grandchild to cook. The many emotional scenes will make you tear up and smile at the same time.

 

I’ve always enjoyed books where food plays an important role and have loved trying to cook the food to enjoy with the book.  Green spaghetti is now one of my favorite Mexican dishes!  Readers will also love this book if they enjoy magical realism with heart and familial stories.

What Lies In The Woods by Kate Alice Marshall was a book that I thoroughly enjoyed. This book is a mystery-thriller with aspects of true crime drama. More than once, the author surprised me with an unexpected twist, and the last 50 pages of the story were a roller coaster ride!

 

The story begins in a small mill town. Two young girls stumble out of the woods covered in blood, crying that a man killed their friend. A search party quickly goes to work looking for the lost girl who is found in the evening barely clinging to life. Shortly after, a man accused of being a serial killer is arrested in connection to the attack and sentenced to life in prison based on the testimony of the three girls.

 

Many years later, Naomi, the victim of the attack, is contacted by the prison and informed that the killer has died. Naomi has struggled for years to deal with the trauma of the attack but also with her own guilt. She does not remember anything about the attack and fears she has put the wrong person behind bars.

 

Naomi decides to return to her hometown to seek out answers and meets up with her two best friends, Olivia and Cassidy, who were in the woods with her that day. The girls had spent the summer playing what they called the "goddess game," trying to hang on to what little magic was left of childhood. As Naomi searches for answers, many lies come to the surface -- and not everyone will survive. What really happened in those woods, and could it happen again?

 

What Lies in the Woods was nominated for the 2023 Goodreads Reader’s Favorite Mystery and Thriller award. If you enjoy this story, check out First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston and None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell.