Books
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What I’m Reading Wednesday: It Started With a Breakup
Today’s picks for What I’m Reading Wednesday have one thing in common – they both center around a young woman who has just broken off her engagement – one the dumper, one the dumpee – and what direction their lives take afterwards. They are two very different characters in personality (one independent and driven, one dependent and searching for purpose) and life circumstance (one scraping by, one a reluctant socialite) but both women are surrounded by colorful supporting characters and find their strengths and happiness in the end (of course!) So let’s get started with What I’m Reading Wednesday! First on my list is Creature Comforts by Trisha Ashley. This…
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What I’m Reading Wednesday – The Dead Key
The days are getting longer and the weather is gorgeous here, so I’m enjoying this brief lull before mosquito season kicks by reading on the patio. My pick for this week’s edition of “What I’m Reading Wednesday” is the 2014 Grand Prize and Mystery & Thriller Fiction winner of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel award, D.M. Pulley’s The Dead Key. The Dead Key is the story of two women involved with behind-the-scenes dealings of the First Bank of Cleveland, separated by 20 years. The store vacillates between 16-year old bank secretary Beatrice Baker in 1978 and civil engineer Iris Latch, who in 1998 is freed from her tedious desk job to survey the now defunct…
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What I’m Reading Wednesday: A Hope Remembered
Guess what day it is? It’s What I’m Reading Wednesday! This week I’m talking about A Hope Remembered, the third book in Stacy Henrie’s “Of Love and War” series. I loved this book so I’m thrilled to be participating in her release week blitz – and not just because it means I had the chance to do a Q&A with her! But first, the book: The final chapter in the “of Love and War” trilogy, A Hope Remembered is the story of Nora Lewis. Heartbroken over the loss of her fiancé in the Great War and the death of her parents, the inheritance of a sheep farm in England seems like the opportunity a new start.…
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What I’m Reading Wednesday: Dead Wake
I’ve been reading quite a bit of narrative non-fiction of late, and my book choice for “What I’m Reading Wednesday” does not disappoint. In the way that Erik Larson’s other books have entertained as much as educated, I have found his newest release Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania to be a page-turner and an eye-opener. His telling has plenty of detail and brings the story to life. Did I know the story of the Lusitania? I thought I did, but this book proved that I had a back-cover summary of the events in contrast to the complex reality. The Lusitania was a ship in the British Cunard line that made…
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Glass Half Empty
I sometimes wonder if it is the curse of the first-born child to be cautious and a worrier, because as first time parents we tend to hover and be over-protective (where the second child is the adventurous free-spirit, because either we’ve gained confidence or we’re too worn out to care.) When my kiddo shows signs of anxiousness about something, I have to wonder how much is nature and how much is nurture – although, either way, it would come down to me anyway. That said, we do our best to control the things that might cause unnecessary anxiety for a child with a very active imagination and a glass half…
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What I’m Reading Wednesday – Stories With A Touch of Magic
For having been on a vacation last week that entailed very little sitting, I’ve been tearing through a fantastic list of books on my Kindle. This week, I want to share two books that are perfect escapes. Since I first read Sarah Addison Allen’s The Sugar Queen I’ve been a fan, and I have been eagerly awaiting her most recent book, First Frost. . First Frost is a story of two magical sisters, Claire and Sydney Waverley, their equally magical daughters (Mariah and Bay), a temperamental house and a cantankerous apple tree. Sarah Addison Allen returns to Bascom, NC to pick up the story of the Waverley sisters ten years after we last…
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What I’m Reading Wednesday: The Nightstand Edition
It’s been cold, and I’ve just wanted to curl up with a book and a cup of tea. Because of this, and some overenthusiastic trips to both the library and the bookstore, I now have a stack of books on my nightstand (and on my coffee table, and on my end table). We won’t talk about what I’ve downloaded to my Kindle recently, or the NetGalley advanced reader copies I have waiting to be read… The weather has been miserable, which makes me race through my to-do list so that I can curl up with a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive biscuit for an hour or so in…
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That Time I Didn’t Climb the Statue of Liberty
When I was younger, my family – my parents, younger sister and brother and I – road tripped to New York on vacation. While some points are blurry (making me wonder if I really need to stress out so much about planning memorable trips when I can only remember the weird/scary/highlights myself), two things stand out: stopping to ask a Jersey cop how we could get to the hotel my mother booked in East Orange, New Jersey (answer: “just keep driving, you really don’t want to go there”) and (nearly) climbing the Statue of Liberty. Let me explain. I may be a bit claustrophobic and I’m not a fan of stairs. Oh, the…
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Put on Your Big Kid Pants
When I was about ten years old, I participated in a music competition. Wait, let me back this up a bit. My parents left one night to buy a piano; I was overjoyed. They returned with an electric organ. I was mortified. Still, my sister and I obediently took lessons. I practiced daily, because I was the first-born rule follower. My sister, disliking it as much as I did but not needing to do the die-hard rule following thing because she had ME, instead put on her headphones, kicked up the rhythms and pounded away at the keys for her practice time, until the day music teacher gently suggested to my…
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What I’m Reading Wednesday – Wartime Stories
Reading is a great form of escapism for me, and sometimes, when the world seems too complicated, I reach for historical fiction – particularly fiction set around the first and second World Wars, because life at that time seemed simpler. Love wasn’t over thought and life was about family and faith. Well, sure, that is a generalization, and every generation had its share of problems and conflict, but life in general was simpler, and romance was sweet. So for What I’m Reading Wednesday, I’m sharing two books set in and post-wartime. Hope Rising, the second book from the “Of Love and War” series by Stacy Henrie. While part of a…
