Tag: what I’ve been reading lately

What I Read in July (2023)

Books Read in July: 19
Books Read for the Year:  117/225
Topical Books/Monthly Goal Books:

Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe, by Heather Webber (TBR). This was such a lovely Southern fiction read!
The Light Over London, by Julia Kelly (TBR). An excellent historical fiction!
The London House, by Katherine Reay (TBR). I enjoyed this a lot.
Gospel Wakefulness, by Jared C. Wilson (spiritual).
Blue Ridge Sunrise by Denise Hunter (TBR). I enjoyed this second-chance romance.
Demons of Good and Evil, by Kim Harrison (TBR). Loved this, as always.

For Review:

Hotel Laguna, by Nicola Harrison. I enjoyed this historical read! There’s a bit of mystery mixed into this post-World War read, and the characters are vivid and realistic.

And Then There Was You, by Nancy Naigle. This was such a sweet romance. It opens with a woman discovering she’s been the victim of an elaborate con and turns into a small-town romance with the detective working her case. I love how faith is woven throughout the narrative subtly and pervasively.

The Last Exchange, by Charles Martin (review forthcoming). This book. Y’all. Charles Martin is my absolute favorite author, and I was thrilled when I got the chance to read it four months before release day! I’ll be buying this in hardback when it hits shelves. Martin writes such believable, larger-than-life characters, and I fell in love with Maybe Joe and Pockets almost immediately. This book touched my heart on a deep level, and the theme, “A life laid down is better than one picked up,” is still resonating with me days after finishing this.

What Happens After Midnight, by K. L. Walther. This was a fun YA read, although bits of it felt a little bit too-good-to-be-true. (Their relationships with the adults in the story, for example. And the freedom they had at a boarding school.)

Hello Stranger, by Katherine Center. This read was great fun! It was interesting, reading about facial blindness. I can’t imagine how terrible that must be!

Thief Liar Lady, by D. L. Soria. This was a re-telling of Cinderella. Sort of. I enjoyed it, and the main character, a lot.

Ladies of the Lake, by Cathy Gohlke. I loved this historical fiction read! The characters were so much fun to read (except Dorothy, who I didn’t really like.) I listened to the audio book, and thought it was very well done.

Ghosted, by Amanda Quain. This was a decent YA read, as long as you’re not really expecting a re-telling of Northanger Abbey.

The Keeper of Hidden Books, by Madeline Martin (review forthcoming). This is a wonderful historical fiction read! I was invested from the first page, and soon found myself engrossed enough to go without sleep.

The Bone Hacker, by Kathy Reichs (review forthcoming). Another solid thrill read in the Temperance Brennan series.

The Secret Recipe of Ella Dove, by Karen Hawkins (review forthcoming). I enjoyed this book in the Dove Pond series, although I disliked Angela and Jules immensely.

Just Because:
A Year with C.S. Lewis. I enjoyed this devotional so much!

Chasing Fireflies, by Charles Martin (audio). This was such a good read! Martin has a way of creating such quirky and believable characters who are just fascinating. I do wish we’d found out what happened to jack, though.

Left Unfinished:
Forever Hold Your Peace, by Liz Fenton. I didn’t really care for the characters, so I didn’t make it very far into reading this.

Good Fortune, by C.K. Chau. I wanted to like this, but I found the opening messy and chaotic and I didn’t care for the characters.

Clementine and Danny Save the World, by Livia Blackburne. I read about 40% of this before realizing my attention kept wandering and I just didn’t care about these characters and what they were up to, despite my enjoyment of the tea theme.

Tastes Like Shakkar, by Nisha Sharma. I couldn’t stand the male MC in the opening scene and I don’t care for insta-anything.

A Fatal Groove, by Olivia Blacke. I found the first 10% boring. The characters didn’t catch my attention at all.

Guardians of Dawn: Zhara, by S. Jae-Jones. DN\Fed because of the incessant giggling of the MC…she even called it the Good Looking Giggle. Please, spare me from ridiculous YA characters.

You’re An Animal, by Jardine Libaire. Made it 10% into this, but didn’t like any of the characters.

The One That Got Away, by Charlotte Rixon. I read 10% of this, but was just bored. And, frankly, anything that opens in the POV of a suicide bomber probably isn’t for me.

The Best Books I Read in June (2023)

In June, I read 14 books. Of those, some mere meh, most were solid, and three were exceptional.

The Study of Poisons, by Maria V. Snyder. This is Poison Study from Valek’s POV, and I loved it! It’s been so long since I first read these books, but now I want to re-read all of them.

Morgan Is My Name, by Sophie Keetch. I love King Arthur mythology, and this was a riveting read! From the very first page, when Morgan was seven years old, her voice and personality captivated me. I had trouble putting this down to sleep!

Beach Read, by Emily Henry. I loved the dialogue in this novel! The banter was so witty and had me in stitches so many times. This would make and excellent weekend read—or let’s be hones: a great beach read!

What I Read in June (2023)

Books Read in June: 14
Books Read for the Year:  98/225

Topical Books/Monthly Goal Books:
Beach Read, by Emily Henry (TBR). The banter in this was fantastic! I thoroughly enjoyed this read.
Unravel the Dusk, by Elizabeth Lim (TBR). I still love the magic in this.
Heartbreak Bay, by Rachel Caine (TBR). I’ve been putting off reading this for for a while because I’m so sad that Caine passed away. This book. Man. I’ve enjoyed these books so much, but this one messed with my mind! The people lurking in the shadows, harassing Gwen and blaming her ex-husband’s actions on her, and thinking it’s okay to torment her. That is NOT okay. And the little funhouse of horrors at the end…I’m lucky it didn’t give me nightmares. Yet.
The House at the End of the World, by Dean Koontz (TBR). Another one of Koontz’s the-government-is-not-our-friend thrillers.
The Study of Poisons, by Maria V. Snyder (TBR). How could I resist reading the story of Poison Study from Valek’s POV? LOVED THIS.
The Delusion: We All Have Our Demons, by Laura Gallier (audio). This was pretty fascinating.

For Review:

The Little Italian Hotel, by Phaedra Patrick. I enjoyed this novel of self-discovery, although Ginny got on my nerves a bit before she started making decisions for herself.

Same Time Next Summer, by Annabel Monaghan. This book. This book was fantastic! I was sucked in from the very first page and could not put it down until I devoured every single word!

Charm City Rocks, by Matthew Norman. I enjoyed this romance about a guy who gets a chance with the rockstar he’s admired for decades.

Famous in a Small Town, by Viola Shipman. I enjoyed the first half of this, but the second half felt like an unfinished, messy draft, which did not work for me.

Morgan Is My Name, by Sophie Keetch. This was a fantastic read! I’ve always loved Arthurian legends, and Morgan’s voice brought this to such vivid life! Uther Pendragon and Merlin creeped me out quite a bit, but Morgan was wonderful!

Whispers at Dusk, by Heather Graham. I usually enjoy Graham’s books, especially the Krewe of Hunters books, but this felt both rough and disconnected. The transitions as the characters got to know each other felt beyond rushed.

A Rogue at Stonecliffe, by Candace Camp. I enjoyed this second-chance romance.

A Shadow in Moscow, by Katherine Reay. This started off a bit slow, but it ended up being such a good read! The spycraft from a woman’s point-of-view was so fascinating. Highly recommended!

Left Unfinished:

The Last Drop of Hemlock, by Katharine Schellman. I didn’t get very far in this. The pacing was just too slow.

The Chaperone, by M Hendryx. I read about 20% of this before just accepting I was bored, annoyed, and didn’t care about the characters or what happened.

Cassandra in Reverse, by Holly Smale. I tried to like this enough to finish reading it, because the concept was interesting. No such luck. I found Cassandra unlikeable enough to be unreadable to me—even making allowances for the legitimate issues she clearly has.

The Broken Hearts Club, by Susan Bishop Crispell. The main problem I have with the 20% of this that I read is Imogen’s propsensity to and normalization of lying. I cannot stand liars, so reading about a person whose go-to response is lying, is a no-go for me.

Ciao for Now by Kate Bromley. Violet and her friends just felt superficial and flighty to me, and I had no desire to finish reading this.

The Best Books I Read in May (2023)

In May, I read 14 books, bringing my total for the year to 84. Three of those were re-reads of beloved classics: Pride and Prejudice, The Return of the King, and All Creatures Great and Small. All excellent reads, of course. Some of the new-to-me reads were also excellent:

The Secret Book of Flora Lea, by Patti Callahan Henry. This book was a lovely read! I was enchanted from the very first page—with both timelines.

Emma of 83rd Street, by Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding. I was on the fence with the first, frivolous scene of this book, but I ended up enjoying it very much!

Painted Devils, by Margaret Owen. This was the second book of a series, and I enjoyed this from the very beginning. Love the characters, the setting, and everything.

The Best Books I Read in April (2023

In April, I read 16 books, bringing my total books read for the year to 70 books. I also DNFed seven books, which is kind of high for me. Of the 16 books I read, some of them really stood out.

Divine Rivals, by Rebecca Ross. This fantasy novel started off a teensy bit slow, then turned into a sort of of steampunk/alternate world historical fiction with a WWI feel (that was a super clear description, wasn’t it?). I loved the world and the characters, and I can’t wait to read the next book.

Silver in the Bone, by Alexandra Bracken. I love King Arthur mythology, so that alone would have been enough to make me pick this up, but the world and characters kept me glued to the page (screen) as I read this entire 500-pag-novel in one sitting. I highly recommend this!

Water from My Heart, by Charles Martin. I listened to the audio of this book. Y’all. I don’t even have words for this. Charles Martin is my favorite author—hands down. Favorite like “I’ll buy anything he writes. In hardback.” I just finished reading his Murphy Shepherd books a few months ago, and they blew me away. This book also blew me away—and the narrator was fantastic. I loved the story and the characters—and this was such a fantastic illustration of the Gospel message in a current fiction form.

What I Read in April (2023)

Books Read in April: 16
Books Read for the Year:  70/225

Topical Books/Monthly Goal Books:

Lessons at the School by the Sea, by Jenny Colgan (TBR). I thoroughly enjoyed this. So glad to see more of these characters—and I wish the random, unnecessary drama at the school wasn’t quite so accurate.

The Beauty of Spiritual Language, by Jack Hayford (spiritual).

The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis (re-read). Loved this.

The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien (re-read). No matter how many times I read these books, they are still magical.

Iron Wolf, by Siri Pettersonh (TBR). This was dark but absolutely riveting.

Water from My Heart, by Charles Martin (audio). Wow. I have no words to even tell you how fantastic this was.

For Review:

Divine Rivals, by Rebecca Ross. I enjoyed this read, and found it quite unique. Interesting culture—but I would have liked to know a bit more about the history. I can’t wait to read the next book!

Fateful Words, by Paige Shelton. This was a solid cozy mystery. No surprises, but a fun adventure.

The Sinister Booksellers of Bath, by Garth Nix. I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as I did the first book in the series, but this was a solid read. It did feel a bit low-stakes to me, though, so I wasn’t totally invested in it.

Silver in the Bone, by Alexandra Bracken. I enjoyed this immensely! I do love a good King Arthur tale, so this caught my attention initially, but the setting and Tamsin’s voice kept me engaged—I actually read all 500 pages of this in one sitting! The only thing I didn’t like about this was the cliffhanger ending—which would have been fine if I had access to the next book immediately.

How to Best A Marquess, by Janna MacGregor. This was a fun read! I really enjoyed the characters and how this tied in with the other two books in the series.

Pieces of Me, by Kate McLaughlin. This was an interesting read, although I thought her family’s acceptance of her diagnosis was sugar coated a lot and that made the rest of the story hard to accept, too.

An American Beauty, by Shana Abe. This was a decent read. I felt pretty distant from the MC—and she was keeping secrets even from the reader, so that felt a bit off—but it was interesting.

The Ferryman, by Justin Cronin (review forthcoming). I didn’t really care for this. The writing was solid enough that I finished it, but I didn’t like the characters. The first 60% or so felt very…familiar to me, like I’d seen that basic premise done so much it just felt worn and stale. The last 40% felt like absolute chaos and nothing made sense. Even the “explanation” didn’t make sense or explain everything. I would not recommend this.

In an Orchard Grown from Ash, by Rory Power (review forthcoming). Yeah, no. I loved the first book in this duology, but three out of the four siblings in this one were either horrible, useless, or pointless—and the fourth one was useless for the first 2/3rds of the book.

Just Because:

From the Grave, by Kresley Cole. I have been waiting for this book for years! This is the only love triangle I’ve ever read where I didn’t have a favorite. I loved the rest of the series so much that I think anything would have been a bit of a letdown, so that was no surprise, but it was a fitting ending for these characters, even if I couldn’t quite see it.

Left Unfinished:

The House Is on Fire, by Rachel Beanland. The first 5% of this just absolutely didn’t catch my interest at all.

The Seaside Library, by Brenda Novak. I read about 15% of this, but the story did not feel fresh or new to me—it felt similar to other things I’d read, so I got bored quickly.

Blind Spots, by Thomas Mullen. Solid writing. This just wasn’t a good fit for me at the time.

This Isn’t Going to End Well, by Daniel Wallace. I made it about 20% of the way through this because I liked the voice, but I absolutely did not care for the narrator/author character at all.

Where Coyotes Howl, by Sandra Dallas. I read 25% of this, and, while I enjoyed it, there was no conflict. None. While that sounds good in theory, it doesn’t make for an engaging story, no matter how solid the writing is.

The Dutch Orphan, by Ellen Keith. I didn’t get very far in this, because the POV just didn’t work for me. It felt very distant, and I didn’t care for that.

Under the Cover of Mercy, by Rebecca Connolly. The MC felt very haughty and distant in the first 10%, and I just didn’t feel a connection.

The Best Books I Read in March (2023)

I March, I read 21 books, bringing my total for the year to 54. Of those, several were excellent reads. My favorites were:

Off the Map, by Trish Doller. This was such a fun book! I’ve read the other, connected books by this author and loved them, but I think this was my favorite so far. The Irish setting might have had something to do with that…. But I love all the travel and adventures here. So much fun!

West with Giraffes, by Lynda Rutledge. I loved this! I listened to the audio book, and the narrator was great, but this story was just so much fun! I loved all the characters, and couldn’t wait to find out what happened to the giraffes.

Arcana Rising and The Dark Calling by Kresley Cole. I’ve been re-reading this series in preparation for the final book in the series coming out in a couple of weeks, and I just loved all of these. I can’t wait to read the final book—and this is the only time in my life while reading a love triangle that I do not have a favorite I’m hoping will fin.

What I Read in February (2023)

Books Read in February: 16

Books Read for the Year:  33/225

Topical Books/Monthly Goal Books:

The Horse and His Boy, by C.S. Lewis (re-read). I do love this series.

The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien (re-read). I just love this book.

The Record Keeper, by Charles Martin (TBR). I have no words to describe how the ending of this made me feel.

Bibi: My Story, by Benjamin Netanyu (TBR). Okay. I don’t care for biographies. I don’t like politics. Or the military. But this was absolutely fascinating!

Dead of Winter, by Kresley Cole (re-read). Love this.

Day Zero, by Kresley Cole (TBR). I had not actually read this, and it adds some fascinating nuances to these characters I love.

Prince Caspian, by C.S. Lewis (re-read). AGain, love this series.

A New Kind of Apologist, by Sean McDowell (spiritual). I think this would have been a better choice for me in a physical book, so I could retain more of the information.

For Review:

Wildblood, by Lauren Blackwood. This started off strong, then fizzled in a meandering mess of confusion.

Code Name Sapphire, by Pam Jenoff. I’ve read–and loved–several of Jenoff’s other books, but I didn’t like this one quite as much. The ending surprised me–I’m not a fan of big revelations at the end when there’s been no hint of anything going on. Feels like thee author cheated a bit when that happens.

Every Missing Girl, by Leanne Kale Sparks. This was a solid read, but I didn’t love it. Some of the suspects were left unresolved, and that left me out-of-sorts.

Where Darkness Blooms, by Andrea Hannah. This was a strange read. The town horrified me. Th sunflowers really creeped me out. A lot. This was dark, atmospheric, and not a feel-good read.

Nocturne, by Alyssa Wees. I loved the ballet part, but the rest seemed a bit…cookie cutter and a jumble of influences of other tales.

Immortality: A Love Story, by Dana Schwartz. I ended up enjoying this more than the first book in this duology. Lord Byron was just how I imagine him!

When the Moon Turns Blue, by Pamela Terry. This was so good! Southern fiction at its best and dealing with some hard issues via characters that practically vibrate on the page.

The Weight of Air, by Kimberly Duffy. I really enjoyed this! Reading about circus life was fun, and I loved these characters.

Left Unfinished: Of Manners and Murder, by Anastasia Hastings. I have to be honest: I found Violet to be a nosy busybody, so she lost my interest at about 15% of the way through.

The Love Scribe, by Amy Meyerson. I found my attention wandering—and that’s never a good sign. And I didn’t care for Alice.

Sundays Are for Writing #213

This week, I wrote two book reviews, Where Darkness Blooms, by Andrea Hannah and Nocturne, by Alyssa Wees. Work has been pretty emotionally difficult this week, so I’m good with that.

Happy writing!

The Best Books I Read in January (2023)

I read 17 books in January, out of my goal of 225 books for the year, and DNFed one (I feel like that is a record for me).

Of those, I considered four of them 5-star reads….and I’d previously read three of them.

The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. I decided to re-read this series this year because I love C.S. Lewis. He is such a genius and a remarkably gifted writer.

Poison Princess and Endless Knight by Kresley Cole. I’m re-reading this series in preparation for the final book coming out—finally—in April. I absolutely love these books and cannot put them down.

And I loved The Letter Keeper, by Charles Martin. I have loved everything Charles Martin has written–including his two nonfiction books–and I almost can’t put them down. Binge read? Yes, please.