No matter how many times you think that your to be read piles are high enough, an unexpected opportunity to gather up more good things to read can change your calculations in that regard mightily fast.
For example, the other weekend I went to a Pride event in my area and it was definitely a good time had by all; nice weather, great people and booths ranging from jewelry to crafts to music. What was the extra topping to that celebration sundae was the local library promoting their summer schedule and giving away free discarded books!
Offering free books to a reader is simply as irresistible as lasagna is to Garfield so I wound up bringing home eight books that day(been awhile since I had an in person haul like that). In the interest of brevity, I’m highlighting just four of them here, starting with Sag Habor by Colson Whitehead.
This story is set in the summer of 1985 as fifteen year old Benji Cooper is getting ready to spend the season with his family at the title location and his various coming of age adventures along the way.
This novel came out earlier in his literary career and may seem more lighthearted than some of his later works (The Underground Railroad, The Nickel Boys). However, I have no doubt that there’s plenty of food for thought in this tale of summertime joy:
Another gem that I picked up was Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, which would be called dark academia if released nowadays.
The novel follows Quentin and his friends Alice and Eliot who attend the Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy and along the way discover that the world of their favorite series of fantasy books is very real.
That world is also more dangerous than they expected despite learning the secrets of magic and could affect the reality from which Quentin and company still live. Is it worth the risk to go between worlds or are they destined to cause their own doom?
I remember years ago when this book (and its sequel series) were all the rage, even getting a SyFy Channel show that ran for five seasons. This does seem like the perfect time to see what all the fuss was about and maybe check out the show at some as well:
I paired that one with a Robin Hobbs book from her Rain Wilds Chronicles, Dragon Haven.
This second entry in the series follows a group of dragons seeking a legendary refuge in the form of the city of Kelsingra. Traveling with human keepers such as Alise and Thymata, dragons like Sintara must use what limited powers they have to find their way forward through dangers from without and within.
I’m sure some of you are saying “Uh, this is book two, do you have the first one?”. Well, thanks to Better World Books, I do now and it’s a library copy that matches this edition and if all goes accordingly, I might get the other two books in this series too.
I still haven’t gotten far with Robin Hobbs(it’s not the books, it’s me) but maybe adding a couple more if her works might be the boost I need here. Plus, dragon stories are very popcorn friendly , page turning entertainment:
Last but not at all least, I found one of the latest Maisie Dobbs books by Jacqueline Winspear, The Consequences of Fear.
Set during WWII, Maisie is helping to recruit potential spies for the French Resistance while trying to aid a young London messenger boy named Freddy who witnessed a murder.
As it turns out, the killer may be a recently encountered French officer, who Maisie’s contacts are unwilling to accuse due to internal politics. Can justice be served without endangering Freddy or the war effort?
I have just gotten into these books(already have two and three on hand) and while this story comes later down the line, it’s worth holding on to, particularly since the series is coming to an end. Sad to see it go just when I got started but then again, I do know that there is plenty in store to explore as time goes by:
As for the other four books I bought home, one was a book that I’ve already read but didn’t own(The Wangs Vs.the World by Jade Chang), another was from a cozy mystery series cowritten by Laura Childs, one is a wedding themed romcom and the last is a book that I tried to read once before but didn’t get too far(The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry).
A nice bookish surprise like this was wonderful and made that particular day even more special. Too bad the next bookish surprise I encountered was the backlash to this season of Bridgerton.
The uproar over (spoiler alert) of a couple of characters being bisexual both in current and future storylines has really unraveled some people and I for one don’t get why a show that made it perfectly clear from the jump that it was going to be very different from the source material (with the approval of the author no less!) is just NOW getting outraged over changes.
The level of bigotry and ignorance on this subject being justified by arguments such as “I just want it to be the way it was in the book!” and “This character should be the gay one, not this person!” is head shakingly awful to say the least.
I did watch the entire new season and was happy to see my favorite character, Penelope Featherington, get her time in the spotlight. Sure, there are some plot points that I wouldn’t mind debating such as should we feel sorry for Cressida(I kind of do and don’t) and is Eloise a good friend to anyone?
Sadly, instead we got a lot of prejudice being spewed out during Pride Month and after pushing back on several fronts, I wound up leaving a FB Bridgetton group over this toxicity. It’s horrible enough that the LGBTQIA community is facing extra pressure these days without being harassed in a space that’s meant to be a welcoming escape from such harshness.
Hopefully by the time we get season four , some reasonableness will return to the fan base and maybe this show can be enjoyed for what it is rather than what certain people demand it be. In the meanwhile, I will try to think about the positive moments such as Penelope making her glow up appearances in that green gown, a bookish surprise for all to embrace indeed:
Having skipped last month’s offerings from Book of the Month Club, I was extra eager to dive into the selections for June.
Ironically enough, all of my picks happened to be from the prior month. Listed as a members favorite, Mai Corland’s Five Broken Blades is a fantasy novel that feels like an awesome summer movie waiting to be made.
In order to take down the seemingly unstoppable King Joon, a team of unlikely allies is formed by a royal spy master determined to place his own candidate upon the throne. The plan is set to take place at a championship game but just getting there is a perilous journey with numerous foes to fight along the way.
With risky alliances and a potential traitor in their midst, can this rough yet ready crew pull this ultimate assignment off or become casualties of a never ending political battle?
So happy to have this book on hand and my elevator pitch for this would be “The Suicide Squad meets Game of Thrones“(no dragons here but still…):
As a double feature, I went with One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware.
The couple in question is Lyla and Nico, who having been dating for a few years but their relationship is starting to fade fast.
To strengthen their ties, Lyla agrees to go with Nico to a remote island for a romance themed reality show that could boost his flagging acting career. Things begin well enough for an experience like this but the tide turns in a very dangerous direction.
When a storm hits the island, the power source is damaged along with most of the supplies. In addition to that, a body is discovered and that demise doesn’t appear to be an act of nature. Faced with some serious reality issues, Lyla forms some new alliances to stay alive until a rescue arrives but hopefully to find the killer hiding among them in plain sight.
I’ve only finished one Ruth Ware novel(The Woman in Cabin 10) and would really like to complete another but my success in that goal hasn’t been achieved just yet. Since this story has a bit of Knives Out energy to it, my chances are considerably better towards that literary end:
For something a bit more chill, Christina Lauren’s The Paradise Problem is that cool drink of romcom punch just right for the season.
When Anna got into a marriage of convenience (for student housing in college), she never thought that her temporary husband Liam would be around after graduation.
A few years later, Liam shows to tell that a) they’re still married and b) he needs Anna to join him on a destination wedding trip with his family in order to claim an inheritance. He does offer to pay her and since she’s recently unemployed with her father’s medical bills as part of her financial responsibilities, Anna says yes to the deal.
Having not taken the time to know him beforehand, Anna is pleasantly surprised to learn that Liam is a good guy,despite his lengthy deception scheme with his rather obnoxious family. Liam starts feeling the same but in making this sham marriage too risky for all concerned?
Christina Lauren is a real charmer when it comes to making these familiar genre moves weave themselves into a fresh new pattern of romantic comedy style. I’ve already started this book and it’s an entertaining proposal thus far:
Well, my summer reading in general is going well as I finished the first book in my Sci-Fi Summer readathon and had a most unexpected book haul of major proportions (more on that one next time!)there.
With the warm weather fast approaching, seeking shade with a few cinematic worthy reads is a sensible solution indeed. After all, the remaining season of Bridgerton has only four new episodes newly dropped and as lovely as those are, it won’t be enough to fully sustain us gentle readers for the rest of the summer!:
Well, I’m back from my Memorial Day break and hope everyone had a good start off to the summer there.
My summer of reading is starting with the completion of round one of Trilogy Time as the last book in Nora Roberts’ Irish Born, Born in Shame, was on my shelf before the holiday officially began!
For this tail end of the literary trio, we meet American born Shannon Bodine, who learns from her dying mother that her biological father is Tom Concannon, not the man who married her outcast mother and raised her as his own.
After her mother’s passing, Shannon is notified about her half sisters in Ireland, with Brianna extending an invitation to her B&B for a visit.
Feeling overwhelmed by both the secrets revealed and the angry last conversation with her mom, Shannon decides to take some time off from her work as a corporate graphic designer and head over to Ireland for a brief visit.
That visit turns out to be much longer than she had planned, partly due to Murphy, the original boy next door to the Concannon sisters. He takes one look at Shannon and is completely thunderstruck, no doubt in his mind that she’s the one he’s been waiting for.
They do have chemistry but I have to admit that there were moments(such as arranging for Shannon to meet his entire family all at once!)that I wanted to say to Murphy-“Dude, slow your roll a little! She’s dealing with her mom’s death plus learning about a whole new family that is trying to get to know her as much as she’s trying to get to know them and figure out what is next for her in life, step back a bit, my guy!”
Murphy is a good guy, don’t get me wrong and yes, this book was released in the late nineties so some allowances in the romance department for the time period are needed. To be fair, Shannon is up front with him about her feelings regarding her current state of flux and for the most part, he does respect her wishes.
However, when they finally do connect, the relationship feels well earned and you do root for them to get together in a way that is best for them both:
As for the rest of the story, I do like Shannon and how well she fit in with the Concannon sisters, even to the point of handling their temperamental mother Maeve(who was understandably upset about the news about what her late husband did but not to take it out on an innocent party there).
That’s what I find most engaging about Nora Roberts and her writing; she takes the time to fully develop her characters and devotes good portions of the plot to the central person discovering what they really want beyond a love interest.
For example , in this book, Shannon comes to realize that her talent for painting is more that just a sideline to her professional work,not to mention something she has in common with her cantankerous yet loving sister Maggie May(who is more like her mother Maeve than she cares to admit).
Also, the whole cast of characters just grows on you and I don’t know if the Concannon family shows up in any of other books that Roberts has written (you could fill a whole public library all of her various novels in various genres !) but I wouldn’t mind running into them again, even the misery loving Maeve.
So, I completed my first prompt for this challenge, which was to read an author that’s new to me and yes, I do like Nora Roberts and wonder what took me so long to check her out(my own foolishness, of course). At the moment, I’m reading one of her standalone novels-Hideaway-and having a good time with it. Granted, there are way too many of her series to fully catch up on but I do plan to add more of her works to future TBRs.
I am curious to try one of her paranormal stories as we did get a hint of that with Born in Shame as Shannon and Murphy shared dreams regarding a local legend of a doomed love between a knight and a woman waiting for him in the midst of sacred stones. That ancient tale was hinted at beforehand in the earlier books but was highlighted strongly in this finale so seeing what Roberts does in a full on fantasy should be fun:
With that, my summer reading is fully underway as I have a Book of the Month Club box on the way plus my Sci-Fi Summer of Romantasy reading got off to a fine start with Half a Soul(which helps make the wait for the second half of Bridgerton S3 all the easier) and onto my next Trilogy Time prompt of rereading an author you know well.
My pick for that was Adriana Trigiani’s Valentine trio that begins with Very Valentine , which introduces you to Valentine Roncalli, a woman determined to save the family custom made shoe business and find love on her own terms. This was the first book that I read by Trigiani and being reacquainted like this is truly a pleasure indeed:
