Weekly Reading Thread: March 19-25

I read Someone Else's Shoes by Jo Jo Moyes.
Nisha and Sam are two very different women.
Nisha lived the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband announced he wanted a divorce and cut her off entirely. Nisha is glamorous, fearless, and determined to hang onto the life she has created for herself. But in the meantime, she must scramble to adjust to an entirely new landscape-she doesn't even have the shoes she was until a moment ago standing in.
That's because Sam at the bleakest point of her life has accidentally taken Nisha's gym bag. But Sam hardly has time to worry about something as petty as a lost bag. She is struggling to keep herself, her out of work husband and her sarcastic teenage daughter afloat. When she tries on Nisha's six inch high Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes for a series of important meetings, the unexpected results give her the confidence that makes her realize something must change and that thing is herself
When the two women finally meet, they will discover that each need the other to put right the wrongs that have been done to them and to the women around them from Nisha's colleague Jasmine to Sam's steadfast best friend Andrea.
This was such a good book, I loved it!

I finished one last Yorkshire Murder novel by J. R. Ellis, The Whitby Murders. This was the sixth mystery in the series, and while I felt like the others were just barely well-written enough to hold my interest, this one was not. So it's off to find another mystery series! I feel like I've read all the good ones.

I'm in the middle of All the Presidents' Gardens by Marta McDowell. I picked up this large hardcover book in the bookstore at Montpelier, James Madison's estate near Charlottesville, when we visited there last fall. This book is a delight! It's a history of the various gardens around the White House from when it was built to the present day. The author is a landscape designer. The book has tons of period drawings, maps and photos. I'd recommend it to anyone who loves gardening, Washington DC, or presidential history.

A couple of good ones this week:

Weyward by Emilia Hart. The debut novel from this Australian author.
A bit of a mixed bag of genres - a feminist revenge fantasy with a bit of historical fiction and some magic reality.
Set in the UK and told in 3 time lines: 1619, 1942 & 2019 a line of strong female characters who all have an affinity with nature & animals and who each learn how to harness their powers to punish the men in their lives who do them wrong.
I loved everything about this!
5 stars.

Unnatural Causes by Richard Shepherd
The author is one of the UK's top forensic pathologists and he talks about his life & career and some of his most interesting cases.
It might be a bit gory for some, but I found it all fascinating.
4 stars

I read The Kind Worth Saving by Peter Swanson. I liked it pretty well -- good characters, and it wasn't completely clear throughout where the plot was going or who had killed who. It wasn't my favorite of his, but if you've read a lot of his stuff, you will like it (and it revives a character from The Kind worth Killing).

I also read I Have Some Questions for You, by Rebecca Makkai. I enjoyed this. The basic plot is some combination of Serial and a boarding-school book -- a woman who attended school in New Hampshire returns to teach an intercession course, and gets involved in re-investigating the murder of a classmate when one of her students decides to do a podcast on it. She becomes increasingly convinced the person convicted of the murder didn't do it, and the book involves a lot of rumination about each of the possible alternative killers. It also hits a lot of hot-button issues like Me Too and diversity in education; basically, when I mentioned a few weeks ago that the new Celeste Ng felt ripped-from-the-headlines in a bad way, this book is similar but in a good way.

I had two good reads this week. The first was also I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai. I had given her last book 5 stars so had been looking forward to this. I would say this one was 4.5 stars, I had a hard time putting this down. It juggles multiple storylines really well, just felt there may not have been enough resolution for all of them.

Then I listened to Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli. This was excellent, very sad, but such a good read and with the addition of the main character's Nigerian family and her friends there was good balance with some levity.

Just started Jane Harper’s Exiles.

I also read I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai this week. I gave it 5 stars - loved the writing, I couldn't put it down, and now I can't stop thinking about it. Some of the throwaway lines brought me near tears - she handles the Me Too stuff so deftly.

I listened to The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama. I'd listen to anything she writes. I find her so down to earth yet inspiring at the same time.

I read:
The Winemaker's Wife by Kristin Harmel. It was a good WWII love story told in alternating viewpoints of the past and present. 4/5 stars

Currently reading:
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. It did not catch me at the very beginning, but I am sucked into the story now.

Looking forward to:
The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs by Laura Tremaine which is a nonfiction that will be released 4/4/23. I loved her previous nonfiction book Share Your Stuff: I'll Go First

Just this morning I finished The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman. This is the third in the series about The Thursday Murder Club. (the first was "The Thursday Murder Club," the second was "The Man Who Died Twice"). SO GOOD! Funny, and poignant and good mysteries and always with a plot twist. I LOVE THESE BOOKS. There's a fourth one coming out but not until September! ack. lol


I also finished The Mitford Affair by Marie Benedict. I'm not wild about her writing style (she tends to repeat herself) but most of her books have been interesting to me. This one is about the upper class people who supported Hitler in the lead-up to WWII. Because Benedict's books are historical fiction the main characters were all real people. And as always happens after I read her books I end up googling stuff, and taking some actual non-fiction books out of the library to learn more about it. I had known that some aristocracy supported Hitler but I didn't realize the extent of it. 


And I think since the last time I commented in the book thread I finished The Lady With the Gun Asks the Questions by Kerry Greenwood. Although now that I type it out I feel like I might have already mentioned it. It's a book of short stories about Phryne Fisher. It was just okay. Some of the stories were repetitive of other things that have been written, and most of her household -- companion, butler and cook, and adopted kids, not to mention her cat and dog -- weren't in any of the stories. Since they were short stories it was okay though. So now I can check it off of my Phryne Fisher list. One more to go which I'm on hold for at my library. I need to check to see if Greenwood is writing any more. 

And, because of this thread I've put "Someday, Maybe" and "Weyward" on my hold list. lol 

 

I just finished The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne.  I absolutely loved this book and it will most likely be one of my all time favorites!  5 Stars.

Two for me last week………….



THE SLEEPWALKER (‘23 - 4 STARS) BY L.C. GEORGE
DESCRIPTION : Sam Fulford is living a perfectly normal life, except for one little thing: a strange sleep condition that causes him to roam in the night and occasionally become violent. So when Sam wakes one devastating morning to discover his wife dead beside him and his baby daughter missing, his whole world implodes. Did he accidentally kill his wife during a night time episode? If so, where is his baby?
Just as Sam begins to accept the possibility that he is guilty, he finds a photograph that makes him realise someone else may be involved, that he may be innocent and might yet find his missing daughter.

REVIEW :
Author’s debut book who posts on Facebook’s Psychological Thriller Readers Group. For $.99 thought I’d give it a try. Lots of suspense and anticipation in this book waiting to learn about the husbands disorder. Moves along at a good pace and kept me a little frightened of Tessa’s situation. A few hints early on had me suspicious of this book’s direction and the sinister side to come. Twisty read for me from beginning to end. Kept me thinking about the characters even when I wasn’t reading.



I WILL FIND YOU (‘23 - 4 STARS) BY HARLAN COBEN
DESCRIPTION: An innocent father serving life for the murder of his own son receives evidence that his child may still be alive, and must break out of prison to find out the truth.

REVIEW : 
I’ve read 14 books by Mr. Coben and my ratings have been anywhere from 1 Star (1), 2 Stars (2) and 4/5 Stars (11).  I didn’t like The Boy from the Woods (Wilde #1) (‘20 - 2 Stars) so I skipped Wilde Bk #2 (The Match ‘22).  A couple of recent favorites were Run Away (‘19 - 4 Stars) and Don’t Let Go (‘18 - 5 Stars).

Very suspenseful & action-packed plot that kept me reading. Quite a few reviews thought the plot was over-the-top, but not for me. That’s why I read fiction! I did feel the ending was a little rushed but I was still entertained the whole way.


HAPPY READING !

gramma

This week’s reading thread !

The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson. It’s the 1950’s, and two black women, one in Washington, DC and one in Philadelphia, must overcome their circumstances to find love, stability, and family as their lives intersect in a surprising way. I liked it very much. 

I've finished The Forgetting, overall I enjoyed this but the ending felt a little rushed and unsatisfactory. I was initially wrong about the twist but it became obvious just over half way through.

I just finished reading another book which had me literally saying out loud "What?!! that can't be the end!" My dh laughed at me but I said "yeah, you just read it then, and I'll wait for your reaction!" 

It's Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. It's about a young Irish woman who emigrates to the United States, to Brooklyn, NY. The story was interesting enough to follow along as she became acclimated to life in the USA, started a job, met a few people, etc. 

But the end was just SO UNSATISFYING! omg. If ever a book needed a sequel this is the one. I googled and there isn't one! But all sorts of things came up in my google search, titled "What's up with the ending of "Brooklyn"?" and "Is there a sequel? ? ?" lol

I do not recommend this one unless you don't care about unsatisfying endings.