For the past two years, I set a reading goal for myself at the beginning of the year to challenge myself to read more books. Last year I made it to my goal of 30 just in the nick of time, finishing my 30th book in the middle of December. This year I decided to challenge myself more and raised the goal to 35 books. Right now I’m on track to reach my goals, but I might need to pick up the pace a little bit.

This time of year I do tend to read more than normal because football is on every Sunday. I typically watch the full Eagles game every week, but my brother and dad have football on all day; so when the games aren’t that exciting, I’ll pick up my book and get some reading done.

Typically, I stick to psychological thriller/mystery books; but every once in a while, when I read a really messed-up or scary book, I have to throw in a romance novel. With all the reading I’ve done these past two years, I decided to write some recommendations for my fellow readers.

© Ivan Kruk | Dreamstime

Let’s start off with the romance books I’ve recently read:

• 1,000 Boy Kisses by Tillie Cole — Make sure you have tissues ready
• The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy by Jenny Han
• The Summer of Broken Rules by K.L. Walther
• Every Summer After by Carley Fortune
• In Five Years by Rebecca Serle — Another tear jerker
• Meet Me by the Lake by Carley Fortune

Now, moving on to psychological thrillers/mysteries, I have a lot more of these recommendations:

• Never Lie by Freida McFadden
• Ward D by Freida McFadden
• Verity by Colleen Hoover
• Rock, Paper, Scissors by Alice Feeny
• Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeny
• Local Women Missing by Mary Kubica
• We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
• Family of Liars by E. Lockhart
• The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager
• The It Girl by Ruth Ware
• Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum
• Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter
• A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson (recently turned into a Netflix series)
• The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand (recently turned into a Netflix series)

Happy reading!

— Mary Melnick, social media & editorial coordinator