Freida rose biography of rory gilmore

February. It's the month of Valentine's Day: the time for chocolates, roses, and grand romantic gestures. But this year has another treat in store, especially for bookworms. A slate of new books is set to be released in February 2025, and the month will be positively brimming with scintillating works of fiction and nonfiction, giving readers plenty to love. And what better way to make the most of this overflowing abundance than by discussing some of the very best new releases with your book club?

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People Of Means, By Nancy Johnson

Freda Gilroy and her daughter Tulip face two different Americas in this much-anticipated new novel: Nashville in 1959 and Chicago in 1992. In the former, the drumbeat of a rising movement reverberates through Music City, as the students of Fisk University prepare to challenge Jim Crow laws. In the latter, ambition hits a high note in the corporate skyline, but the streets pulse with a heavier bassline of outrage after the Rodney King verdict. Distinct but no less entwined, the stories of mother and daughter carry the generational rhythms of resistance forward in a moving tale of love, family, and the enduring fight for racial justice.

Family dynamics are author Nancy Johnson's speciality. "People of Means" builds on the success of her acclaimed fiction debut, "The Kindest Lie." Johnson's first novel followed a woman revisiting the buried truths of her past in Indiana, and the sacrifice she made for the privileges of her current middle-class existence in Chicago -- all framed by the hopeful atmosphere of Barack Obama's ascent to presidency in 2008. With her vivid imagination and illustrative approach to storytelling, Nancy Johnson is one writer you won't want to forgo.

Mornings Without Mii, By Mayumi Inaba

Put simply, "Mornings Without Mii" is an utterly adorable piece of literature. In this delicate new translation of a modern Japanese class

If you can’t get enough of the beloved series, check out these reading recommendations

Fall is here, which means switching out sunglasses for sweaters and lemonade for chai lattes and, of course, embarking on your annual rewatch of the ultimate comfort show — Gilmore Girls. The family-focused dramedy, which aired on the WB, and later the CW, from 2000 to 2007, is a beloved favorite. And since it began streaming on Netflix in 2014, we can all indulge whenever we need a hit of cozy.

It just isn’t autumn without mother-daughter duo Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, their life in the quirky Connecticut town Stars Hollow and their love of coffee, witty comebacks and pop culture tidbits.

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If you also love staying in with a good book once the weather gets colder, there’s a great selection of Gilmore Girls-related reads available and coming out this fall. Head back to Stars Hollow this fall with one these books.

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‘Gilmore Girls: The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge’ by Erika Berlin

So many Gilmore Girls

RORY: Oh, a girl told me once that if your scalp is hurting from bleach, drink a 7 Up. It’s something to do with the bubbles.

LANE: The Kim household does not have soft drinks.

RORY: Well, what do you got?

LANE: Something called Salad Water imported from Korea. Believe me, it’s nothing like 7 Up.

7 Up, a lemon-lime flavoured soft drink owned by Dr Pepper, and distributed by Pepsi. It was created by Charles Leiper Grigg in St Louis in 1929, two weeks before the Wall Street stock market crash of that year. Originally called Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda, it contained lithium citrate, a mood stabiliser used to treat manic states and bipolar disorder. It became 7 Up in 1936, and nobody really knows why that name was chosen – some say that it refers to the seven original ingredients, some that it’s a coded reference to lithium, which has an atomic mass around 7.

7 Up won’t do anything to stop your scalp hurting after bleach (and if it’s the bubbles, wouldn’t any soft drink do the same thing?), but I’ve seen it recommended for stomach ache and the common cold, so there seems to be a lot of belief in it as a folk remedy. I suspect Rory is saying anything to distract Lane, and possibly hoping for a placebo effect.

Salad Water, or Water Salad [pictured], is water flavoured with green salad, produced by Coca-Cola in Japan. I’m not sure why the Kims have imported it from Korea when it’s a Japanese product – perhaps the Korean import-export company imports it from Japan, then exports it to the US.

When done on your terms and with the intention to gain knowledge, perspective or simply lighthearted relaxation, reading is a gift.

Even if you’re not the *biggest* reader or you find you don’t have enough hours in the day, cracking open a new best-seller, a page-turning thriller or a heartwarming contemporary romance read doesn’t have to be another “chore.” If you commit to reading 50 pages a day, you’ll be surprised at how reading will seamlessly enter your daily routine.

That’s what I did, and I read 128 books in 2024.

Of course, there were many days I read more than 50 pages of a book because I couldn’t put it down. I sourced recommendations from a variety of sources, including Reese’s Book Club, Rory Gilmore’s Reading List that’s chock-full of classics and renowned literature, Read with Jenna, Amazon’s Book Club (Sarah Selects), Book of the Month recommendations and more. Oh, and hunting down Goodreads and social media’s #BookTok.

After rounding up every book I completed monthly since January 2024, find the titles that earned a remarkable five-star rating. These are books that I’d recommend to practically anyone and that I’d certainly re-read a second time (or third, or fourth).

Oh, and you’ll want to sign up for Audible. If your schedule is packed or you’re frequently on the go, you can squeeze in more reading time come 2025 for your New Year’s resolution.

“#FashionVictim” by Amina Akhtar

Goodreads rating: 3.30/5 stars

About the book: #FashionVictim by Amina Akhtar is a darkly satirical thriller that follows a fashion-obsessed influencer who becomes entangled in a dangerous web of deceit, betrayal and