Fewer Than 1000 Ratings: Recent Reads

Happy Tuesday y’all! This week Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl is handing the TTT topic to Nicole at BookWyrm Knits. Guess what Nicole picked for a topic? She wants us to share some love for independent and Self-Published books. I am the first to admit that I don’t pay a lot of attention to the publisher of a book until I’m writing a review. So I’m twisting the topic a little. How? Well, I am sharing ten books I’ve read with fewer than 1000 ratings, according to Goodreads.

The books on this list are ones that I’ve read since I started blogging in 2021. All of the books are fiction, are not recent publications, and are ones that I have given at least a 3.5-star rating. I may have written a review for the book, but not necessarily.

All titles link to Goodreads,.

Now let’s look at ten of my recent reads with fewer than 1000 ratings!

Gridiron Girl by Tamara Girardi

Julia Medina, dubbed Jules by her closest friends, wants to be the new starting quarterback of Iron Valley High School’s football team, and no one is going to stand in her way. That is—until her boyfriend, Owen Malone, steps up to the challenge. Wanting to maintain her relationship with her boyfriend, Jules is torn. But while Owen is in her heart, football is in her blood.

Once the idea takes root to quit her championship volleyball team and join the leagues of Iron Valley’s toughest teenage boys, there’s no stopping Jules from pursuing her dream. In her mind, expectations that the position will go to a male player have gone on long enough, and even as her decision creates controversy among the booster parents, school coaches, family members, and team members themselves, Jules holds strong in her beliefs.

Which is good—because when parents hear that Jules plans to participate in overnight pre-season camp with a staff of male coaches and eighty high school boys, her tryout is threatened more than ever before. Yet, nobody can deny Jules’ skills. As the youngest sister of three former high school quarterbacks, Jules knows the game. She knows what it takes to outsmart opponents, and she’s not about to let anyone count her out for being a girl.

But as the competition intensifies, Jules must choose what she wants more—to embrace girl power and lead her team on the field or be a girlfriend on the sidelines.

Cynthia Starts a Band by Olivia Swindler

Eleanor Quinn was America’s sweetheart.

The lead singer in a wildly successful band and dating the most beautiful man in America, she lives a life most could only dream of. Then on the night of her engagement, she vanishes, leaving the world to wonder where and why she has gone. Eleanor sets out on a journey to regain agency in her life, to be something other than “Eleanor Quinn.” She moves to Seattle, determined to find herself again. Riddled with self-doubt, she realizes the only way she can ever be free is to share her side of the story. Although starting over is not as simple as she imagined, as the ghosts from her past force their way to her. Cynthia Starts a Band tells the story of starting over and discovering who one is when the world isn’t looking.

Mediums and Murder by Elle Wren Burke

Welcome to the coziest town in Arizona, where the skies are blue, the sun is bright, and murder is in the air.

Alara Beatty likes her life in Prickly Pear, AZ. She’s got great friends, the best dogs ever, and an amazing career. There’s just one problem—she’s got pesky psychic powers that sneak up on her if she isn’t careful.

Convinced her psychic abilities are too scary, she pushes them down. But when a friend is stabbed, Alara gets a vision of the moments before the murder, leaving Alara to wonder if she should finally embrace her gifts to find the killer. Having hidden from her abilities her whole life, though, she has no idea how to get started.

Just in time, her new Aunt Irene has arrived in Prickly Pear to connect Alara with the biological family she has never known. Irene has brought a stunning revelation with her—Alara is not alone in her abilities. Her entire family is psychic, though it looks like Alara might be more powerful than them all.

Also back in town is Alara’s hunky old friend and police officer Rudi Rivera. Alara and Rudi have always had a fun, humorous relationship, but now that they’re both single, could something more be developing?

A lot is changing fast for Alara, but will she accept her aunt’s help to solve the murder? Or will Alara run from the family who abandoned her and the gifts they passed down to her?

The Vinyl Cafe Celebrates by Stuart McLean

From the beginning of life (the hilarious “Labour Pains”) to the end (the touching “Love Never Ends”) and all the moments–big and small–in between, these stories remind us that there are occasions to celebrate every day.

For more than two decades, Stuart McLean entered the hearts and homes of Canadians via The Vinyl Cafe radio show, his many tours across the country, and multiple nationally bestselling books. His charming, humane, and side-splitting stories brought the trials and triumphs of Dave, Morley, Sam, and Stephanie to life and made their memorable circle of friends, family, and neighbors as real as our own.

This collection is both timely and timeless, a rich celebration of Stuart McLean’s inimitable voice and of the importance of love, community, kindness, and the healing power of laughter.

Death in Bloom by Jess Dylan

Sierra Ravenswood is the new part-time employee of the Flower House, a flower shop in Aerieville, Tennessee. It’s true she didn’t expect to be back in her hometown at twenty-eight years old, but after her dream of making it as a singer in Nashville crashed and burned, she’s just grateful to have found a soft place to land.

Because, after all, Sierra firmly believes in being optimistic and positive about life, so she’s sure she won’t have to work at the Flower House forever. But things take a decidedly negative turn when a customer drops dead in the middle of her new bouquet-arranging workshop at the store. When it’s discovered he was poisoned by a snack at the event, everyone at the workshop, including Sierra, is on the suspect list. To make matters worse, her boss has gone AWOL and left the store to her for the cost of one dollar, leaving Sierra in charge of both his store and his high-energy Corgi puppy, Gus.

The town is on edge, and Sierra knows that murder is something that an upbeat attitude and a bouquet of sweet-smelling roses can’t fix. She’s determined to figure out whodunit before anyone else in town meets an untimely reason for needing funeral flowers.

The Victoria in My Head by Janelle Milanes

Victoria Cruz inhabits two worlds: In one, she is a rock star, thrashing the stage with her husky voice and purple-streaked hair. In the other, currently serving as her reality, Victoria is a shy teenager with overprotective Cuban parents who sleepwalks through her life at the prestigious Evanston Academy. Unable to overcome the whole paralyzing stage-fright thing, Victoria settles for living inside her fantasies, where nothing can go wrong, and everything is set to her expertly crafted music playlists.

But after a chance encounter with an unattainably gorgeous boy named Strand, whose band seeks a lead singer, Victoria is tempted to turn her fevered daydreams into reality. To do that, she must confront her insecurities and break away from the treadmill that is her life. Suddenly, Victoria is faced with the choice of staying on the path she’s always known and straying off-course to find love, adventure, and danger.

When You Get the Chance by Tom Ryan and Robin Stevenson

As kids, Mark and his cousin Talia spent many happy summers together at the family cottage in Ontario, but a fight between their parents put an end to the annual event. Living on opposite coasts — Mark in Halifax and Talia in Victoria — they haven’t seen each other in years. When their grandfather dies unexpectedly, Mark and Talia find themselves reunited at the cottage once again, cleaning it out while the family decides what to do with it.

Mark and Talia are both queer, but they soon realize that’s about all they have in common, other than the fact that they’d both prefer to be in Toronto. Talia is desperate to see her high school sweetheart Erin, who’s barely been in touch since leaving to spend the summer working at a coffee shop in the Gay Village. Mark, on the other hand, is just looking for some fun, and Toronto Pride seems like the perfect place to find it.

When a series of complications throws everything up in the air, Mark and Talia — with Mark’s little sister Paige in tow — decide to hit the road for Toronto. With a bit of luck and some help from a series of unexpected new friends, they might just make it to the big city and find what they’re looking for. That is if they can figure out how to start seeing things through each other’s eyes.

Die Around Sundown by Mark Pryor

Summer 1940: In German-occupied Paris, Inspector Henri Lefort has been given just five days to solve the murder of a German major that took place in the Louvre Museum. Blocked from the crime scene but given a list of suspects, Henri encounters a group of artists, including Pablo Picasso, who know more than they’re willing to share.

With the clock ticking, Henri must uncover a web of lies while overcoming impossible odds to save his own life and prove his loyalty to his country. Will he rise to the task or become another tragic story of a tragic time?

Revenge of the Sluts by Natalie Walton

As a lead reporter for The Warrior Weekly, Eden has covered her fair share of stories at St. Joseph’s High School. And when intimate pictures of seven female students are anonymously emailed to the entire school, Eden is determined to get to the bottom of it.

In tracking down leads, Eden is shocked to discover not everyone agrees the students are victims. Some people feel the girls “brought it on themselves.” Even worse, the school’s administration seems more concerned about protecting its reputation than its students.

With the anonymous sender threatening more emails, Eden finds an unlikely ally: the seven young women themselves. Banding together to find the perpetrator, the tables are about to be turned. The Slut Squad is fighting back!

The Thing About Leftovers by C.C. Payne

Fizzy is a good Southern girl who just wants to be perfect. And win the Southern Living cook-off. The being perfect part is hard, though, since her parents’ divorced and everything in her life has changed. Wary of her too-perfect stepmom and her mom’s neat-freak, dismissive boyfriend, she’s often angry or upset and feels like a guest in both homes. She tells herself to face facts: She’s a “leftover” kid from a marriage that her parents want to forget. But she has to keep all of that to herself because a good Southern girl never yells, throws fits, or says anything that might hurt other people’s feelings–instead, she throws her shoulders back, says yes ma’am, and tries to do better. So Fizzy tries her best, but it’s hard to stay quiet when her family keeps getting more complicated.

Fortunately, the Southern Living cook-off gives her a welcome distraction, as do her new friends Miyoko and Zach, who have parent issues of their own.

And that is a list of ten recent reads with fewer than 1000 ratings. Have you read any of these? What books have you read recently with fewer than 1000 ratings?

Looking for some more books to read? Check out my other bookish lists, book reviews, and monthly reading wrap-ups.