3 Fantastically Awesome Books BJ Thinks You Need to Read: June 2025

Looking for Smoke by KA Cobell Thousands of women from American and Canadian indigenous tribes have gone missing. And this is a problem that largely goes unnoticed.  This book is about a group of Blackfoot teens who are being investigated because two girls, their peers, have gone missing and were murdered. Awesome story and it kept me guessing until the end.

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead  OK, I was pretty into this one and I read it on my June offshore sailing trip. It’s not a true story, but based upon real events. Marian Graves is a twin growing up near Missoula, Montana. She and her brother lost their mother in a ship sinking accident at which her father was the captain, and later jailed for his failure in sinking the ship. As she grows up, raised by an uncle, she becomes obsessed with becoming a pilot. She works as a booze runner during prohibition to earn for her pilot lessons, when a rival bootlegger decides to pay for her lessons. But there are strings attached. It’s all about how this woman has to figure out how to get to where she wants as a woman learning to do things that men typically only do, all with this benefactor who ultimately wants to ground her and keep her all to himself. It was an awesome book.

 

Before We Were Innocent by Ella Berman Bess, Joni and Evangeline were best friends from a privileged neighborhood in a suburb of Los Angeles. They take off to Evangeline’s family vacation house in Greece the summer after graduating high school. During that summer Evangeline dies and Joni and Bess are accused of her death. They are cleared of any wrongdoing, however this summer follows them for the next ten years, kind of like an Amanda Knox situation. Then 10 years later Joni randomly knocks on Bess’ door because her partner has gone missing. Bess attempts to help the friend that she hasn’t spoken to since that summer in Greece, all the while wondering if Joni had something to do with Willa’s disappearance. And whether Joni had something to do with Evangeline’s death 10 years earlier. Awesome.