This is my third novel by this author and I gotta say, he's fabulous. This novel features sons from his two previous novels (but knowing that or not knowing won't impact this story) who meet at random ten years after their own stories from those books. That fateful meeting sets off a chain of events that is part decades old mystery, as well as a story about friendship and family. If you have never read this author, I can highly recommend.

Loved it. Marnie and Michael end up walking from one side of England to the other. He‘s unhappily separated from his wife; she is divorced. They have a mutual friend who thinks that meeting new people would be good for them both. I love the way Nicholls writes and this book is laugh out loud funny…I think Nicholls wrote the book on witty banter…but also heartfelt and romantic. My kind of romance.

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs tagged by @dabbe
As always, I am late.
1. I HATE spoilers. I never flip to the end. Ever.
2. If the character was exactly as I imagined him, maybe; choosing a fave author would be hard.
3. Romance for sure…but a good one, not a sappy one.
4. Maybe sci fi, in the hopes that the future is better than the past. Or send me to Bridgerton, exactly as Shonda imagines it.
5. Skip the last because I never finish series. 🤣

I read it pretty much in one sitting, if that tells you anything. Ruth, the daughter of an evangelical preacher, and Everett, son of an abusive alcoholic, become friends because of a horrific act of violence. Their friendship and loyalties are tested by the corrupt and suspicious backwater town in which they live. Lots of elements I really loved, including the main characters.

Well, not scary, I can say that. It‘s really more of a mystery than a horror novel. The main character was annoying and that sort of undermined her story. As a toddler, her father hacked her mother and brothers to death and then slit his own throat, but left her untouched. 25 years later, the house where it happened becomes available and she decides to move in. As you would. 😬 The story had potential, but didn‘t live up to its promise.

Quick turn around on this swap.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1PXe_OBGdmYgzE3Rpfr_RqCWN6wtDkBUeszWwjCXX4Ns/vie...

@Bookgoil @Deblovestoread
Happy summer.

❤️😭 a beautiful book about the friendship between Tully and James which captures one weekend in 1986 and a life-changing phone call 30 years later. I loved everything about this book from the music references to the setting (Glasgow) and the book was both funny and also made me cry more than once. 5🌟

I read this in a day. It‘s almost 600 pages long, but the chapters are super short and it‘s mostly dialogue. Whitaker‘s super power is writing characters you fall in love with and there are several of them in this book, particularly Patch and Saint, besties who save each other again and again. There‘s also a solid mystery and some good twists. It wasn‘t the sucker punch of We Begin at the End, but I did love it.

I dunno. I was all in for the first half and then something happened. We‘ll be discussing this book at book club later this month, so perhaps I will have a better handle on my feelings after that discussion. I will say this: it was easy to read.

#truth

Look at this fun surprise which arrived on my doorstep. Thank you, @LeahBergen . Litsy friends are the best!

I am giving this a so-so because I just don‘t think I am the right reader for straight up romance 101 for twenty somethings. This is my third book by this author and I have the same complaint about all of them. This one was slightly more irksome because of all the ridiculous PEI references. I know, it takes place on the island but do we have to hear about Cows Creamery butter every time someone makes toast? Probably lots of readers will love it.

I am not sure how I feel about this book. The accolades are numerous, the writing is fabulous but I felt sort of distanced from the story. It‘s about two teenaged sisters, July and September, who have left their home in Oxford to live in a crumbling cottage by the sea after some sort of “incident”. It‘s been called everything from a “gothic mystery” to a “highly disturbing shocker”. Despite those descriptors, it wasn‘t a page turner.

I mean, sure, I buy too many books, but I doubt anyone here is going to call me out on it. You're my people. #bookhaul #sorrynotsorry

This novel is based on the McMartin preschool trial/Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Some of it was creepy, but mostly it was just weird. Soft pick.

#WondrousWednesay
@dabbe
1. There are probably loads. I mean, can I call myself an English major if I have never read Virginia Woolf?
2. Hello, Beautiful; A Little Life; The Midnight Library; anything by that hack, Colleen Hoover
3. Flowers in the Attic

My first 5 ⭐ read of the year. This is 15-year-old Wren's coming-of-age story. She lives with her parents in the mountains of West Virginia. Her father is a snake handling preacher; her mother has been beaten down by life. It is a stunning novel and I will definitely read anything else this author writes.

We will be discussing this book tonight at book club. I enjoyed this story of a woman whose husband‘s recent and completely unexpected death throws her life into chaos…and then she has the chance to inherit millions of dollars. Messy, funny, heartfelt…this book tackles mother/daughter relationships, aging, and $. I enjoyed the read.

A little pre-summer #bookhaul for my tbr pile. How quickly will I actually get to any of these? 🤷‍♀️
Do I care that some might languish for a while? Also 🤷‍♀️.

One last #bookhaul for the 2023-24 school year because 🤷

This is a soft pick about a girl named Maya who is kidnapped and kept in a garden with several other young girls for the express pleasure of the “Gardener”. Maya‘s story is revealed bit by bit and it is disturbing, but somehow it was sort of ‘meh‘ too. You have to suspend a little bit of disbelief, for sure.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to send cards, gifts, and messages for my birthday. I appreciated every single one of them!

Could this be the book that finally breaks my interminable slump? I dunno. I read it over the course of two days. It‘s a novel that reads like true crime with the author recalling a string of murders which happened in his hometown the summer he was 23. I thought it was excellent and a total page turner and it‘s been a l-o-n-g time since I‘ve said that about a book.

This is a pick, kinda sorta. Norma has never felt like she fit in. Joe has spent his whole life running away from his guilt. This is a story about family. It took me forever to read. #theslumpisreal
Hopefully we will get a chance to chat about it @ShelleyBooksie & @dabbe

#WoundrousWednesday @Eggs
1. birdsong
2. April was a terrible reading month for me. If I had to pick, I‘d say my reread of A Little Princess for my school‘s student book club
3. It‘s a busy month at school and also my birthday month. 😀

I started to write a #LitsyLove letter today, and then thought….I am going to have to say this hard thing over and over and I don‘t want to- so I will just say it here once, mostly for all the lovely pen pals with whom I share the minutiae of daily life. My Aunt San passed on April 19, with my brother Tom & I at her side. She had critical congestive heart failure, which she downplayed for several weeks before it got the best of her. ⬇️

When Tessa and her best friend Callie were children, their eye witness testimony sent a man to prison for a string of murders. Ten years later, Tessa returns to her hometown to visit her incarcerated and dying father and the truth about what happened that night starts to unravel. A complicated, cut above YA mystery.

Dr. and Mrs. Carter were stabbed to death twenty years ago, and now a documentary about the murders has sparked renewed interest in their children, Sara and Shannon, who were ten and twelve at the time. This is a twisty thriller about friendship, family secrets, the bonds of sisterhood, and journalism. It was a page turner, especially the second half.

Ahh, yes, spring in the Maritimes. 😂

If I had to pick between historical or SiFi, I would pick historical although it isn‘t necessarily my favourite.
Thanks for the tag @Eggs
#wondrouswednesday

Unbearably tense story about two brothers, Jonah, 16, and Simon, 14, who have left home for Arizona where they hope they will be reunited with their older brother, Matt, who has been fighting in the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, they get picked up by Mitch and Lilly and things start to go horribly wrong. I really liked the main characters and their predicament was nail biting.

#bookspin and #doublespin for April @TheAromaofBooks
This is the “books that have been neglected on my tbr shelf for a long-ass time” edition. I think #18 has been on there for 20 years. 😂

15 year old with bi-polar disorder (thus unreliable) attends private boarding school and finds herself in the crosshairs of a mean girl. It was painfully slow & nothing much happens until the last 50 pages. Ward had a weird and distracting writing tick...she started sooooo many sentences with 'As'. Like multiple instances per page. Just...no.

A day late and a dollar short, as usual.
1. The tagged book is my most often re-read book. You can read my thoughts about its impact on my life here: https://theludicreader.com/2015/07/01/velocity-kristin-mccloy/
2. Books for school: Gatsby, TKaM, Salt to the Sea, Our Town
3. The Little Princess. ❤️
Thanks for the tag, @ShelleyBooksie
@dabbe for #ThreeListThursday

I was awake early this morning, so I did I little internet troll and came across this beautiful poem. I love Mary Oliver.

#Two4Tuesday (on Wednesday) @TheSpineView
Tagged by @egg and @dabbe
1. Where to start. Many of the things that should be taught at home (personal hygiene, respect, work ethic etc) are now, apparently, part of our domain. I think everyone should be required to take a cooking/nutrition class, $ management, and how to ferret out fake news.
2. Tagged book is sooooo good with a beautiful main character and wonderful supporting characters.

Fabulous YA debut about mental health/depression, friendship and love, family and our place in the cosmos.

I made it just past 100 pages and the thought of 200 more pages of ridiculous characterization just made my heart sink. Amber and Tyler have been besties since they were 14. Tyler has harboured more romantic feelings for Amber. A thing happens which causes Amber to take him at gunpoint to a remote cabin. Sexual assault is a serious topic…and so is Amber‘s eating disorder, but the whole thing reads like something on Wattpad. Blech.

Tagged by @dabbe for #tlt
1. Tagged. Makes me teary every time I read it.
2. Mrs. Turner Cutting the Grass by Carol Shields
3. Anything by Alice Munro. I mean anything, not a story with that name. Lol.

A straightforward revenge thriller featuring a cast of vampires known as Rovers. I do love vampire tales and this is a pick only because it was easy to read and some of the characters were sympathetic, but it certainly wasn‘t the best story about blood suckers I have ever read. #bookspin for March
@TheAromaofBooks

A YA novel in verse, which depicts the relationships of 20 different high school students. I didn‘t always know the gender of the person speaking and I certainly didn‘t always get how these characters connected to each other, but I enjoyed this book nevertheless.

I moved this book up the food chain because a student in my YAL class called it “disgusting” and I had to know what in the heck she was talking about. This is an excellent coming-of-age story set in 1930. 16 year old Thea is sent to the riding camp for some offence which is revealed in fits and starts. She is a girl coming to terms with her own power and I loved spending time with her. Not YA and not disgusting in any way.

#bookhaul from my time in Halifax

Despite the fact that the main character is 16, this dark academia is not YA. Laura Stearns begins a term at St. Dunstan's where she falls under the thrall of Virginia Strauss. I found this book well-written (although the author had some little quirks that did start to grate a little) and interesting. Not much happens, but it was strangely compelling.

Agricola Street Books is not in the database, but this was on today‘s stop.

No. 2.

The first of many bookstores I am likely to visit while visiting my kids in Halifax.

March Break #bookspin
Yes haw!
@TheAromaofBooks

#wondrouswednesday
@Eggs
1. Lilac, rugosa, sweet pea, lily of the valley…the real flowers, not perfume. Remind me of my grandparents‘ property.
2. Being in the woods
3. Clothes fresh off the line

Thanks for the tag @dabbe

I mean, it‘s whackadoodle, sure, but I also had a lot of fun with this story of an estranged brother and sister who are tasked with cleaning out and selling their parents‘ house after their sudden deaths. It‘s often laugh-out-loud funny, squirm inducing and also surprisingly poignant, but the puppet-adverse should beware.