2015 Snagged @ The Library Challenge discussion

Finished off Bec McMaster's London Steampunk series with the final book Of Silk and Steam. Loved it!

Side note, I'm wondering if I should decrease my goal for the year. I received a good number of the books on my library "to read" list at RT.

Today, I finished John Sandford's latest, "Gathering Prey." I've read this entire series and love the character, Lucas Davenport, and all his motley crew. The cover jacket of this novel states that the author, "has something extra in mind with Gathering Prey--something no one will expect." That is certainly true. This book was a rollercoaster ride from beginning to end. Lucas's daughter, Letty, was much more prominent in this book, maybe a portent of things to come, as she's thinking of becoming a cop. We'll see. For now, I'm still recovering from this one, a group of killers from California, a la Charles Manson, running loose in the mid west as part of the Juggalo Gathering. Suspenseful, enjoyable read. Wish I didn't have to wait a whole year for the next one!

I'm currently reading

Just finished The Tempest Graphic Novel by Shakespeare in the original text, which appears to be the only way I can comprehend the Bard's plays in their original text. This was especially enjoyable, given all the comedic scenes in The Tempest.

Other than that, I made the dreadful mistake of starting a Tom Clancy book just before a whole bunch of books I've been requesting from the library became available all at once. Can't wait to get the darn thing finished so I can get started with this other stack!

Took a break from my Tom Clancy and decided to read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. Great book! Read it in just a couple of sittings. Most fascinating to me of the whole thing--a Sci-Fi book written by an author who is clearly a Creationist. Didn't know that actually existed anywhere. I thought all sci-fi was pretty much based on evolution. I can't believe I missed reading this until I was a middle-aged adult!

Finished "The Liar" by Nora Roberts this morning. I truly enjoyed this book. I think it has to be in the top 5 of all the Nora Roberts books I've read. I loved the main character, Shelby, and the story of this smart, sassy woman who loses her way for awhile, gets the smart and the sassy kind of beat down out of her by an uncaring husband. Husband dies, woman takes her 4-year-old daughter and goes back home to family in the Smoky Mountains and finds her way back to herself, reconnects with her family and old friends, finds work she enjoys, finds happiness and love. There's also some suspense, although I kind of knew what was going to happen from the beginning but it was interesting enough that I didn't mind that. Altogether a very enjoyable few hours of reading. Great for a summer beach read or a rainy weekend.

Finished the graphic novel Mercury by Hope Larson. Weird book. I'm looking for something similar to The Complete Maus. This ain't it.

Haven't been reading much since returning to work. Today I read the No 1 Detective Agency. I can see why this is a popular series.

Finally finished that Clancy novel that has kept me beleaguered the entire month of June. It sure was long, but Red Rabbit was a really great story. There's just something about Cold War stories that are so much fun to read--the intrigue, the rules, the code words, the constant game of world chess. I love it.

But it will be a while before I pick up another Clancy again. I have to remember that when I need a quick book to fill in the gap, Clancy isn't the place to go.

Finished Karen White's "The Sound of Glass" this evening on my dinner break. I was trying to finish before I started work this afternoon and I just had about 5 or 6 pages. I hate when that happens! This book was sooo good! I have read a couple of her books before, but it's been awhile. This one, like a lot by this author, was set in the low country of South Carolina. It was a great story about starting over, about family, facing our fears. Merritt is a widow, living in Maine, when she inherits the family home of her deceased husband. The thing is, she didn't know her husband had any family and she tells everyone that she has no family. So, she decides to start over by selling most everything she has and moving to Beaufort, South Carolina. She's barely arrived when her widowed stepmother and her 10-year-old brother show up and move in. There is tension between the characters and a back-burner story line about her husband's grandmother and the characters do a lot of growing up. Very engaging book, I couldn't put it down and I had a great cry near the end! Will be checking out more of this author's books very soon.

Read Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry in two sittings. Great story! Quick read, too.

Angel wrote: "Read Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry in two sittings. Great story! Quick read, too."

Ohh, this one is on my list too. Glad to know it was good!

Just finished Nancy Thayer's newest, "The Guest Cottage." Okay, this author was back to her usual good reads with this book. It was soooo much better than her last one, which I didn't even finish (and I don't do that lightly!). This story was about 36-year-old Sophie, a wife and mother with 2 children, 15-year-old Jonah and 10-year-old Lacey, whose husband has just asked her for a divorce. She packs the kids and herself off to Nantucket for the summer, using most of an inheritance from her Aunt Fancy to pay for it. The surprise is that the house she has rented is owned by 2 cousins who both arranged a rental for the summer. So, she is sharing a house with 30-year-old widower, Trevor, and his 4-year-old son, Leo. This is the story of their summer, getting to know each other and a band of friends and family that come to visit. This was a really good beach read. I started it on Thursday night and finished it before work on Saturday. It was an enjoyable, relaxing read; almost like taking a little vacay on Nantucket myself!

Finished reading "The Life List" by Lori Nelson Spielman this morning. Actually, to begin with, I thought the premise of this story was pretty silly. The book begins with thirty-something Brett, a single woman losing her mom to cancer. Her inheritance is a life list she wrote when she was 14 with a list of things she wanted to accomplish in life. Mom gives Brett 1 year to accomplish everything she has marked on this list, if she does this, she will receive her real inheritance. So, based on this, I wasn't sure I would enjoy this book. However, I was drawn in right from the start. There was a line right near the beginning when Brett is thinking about losing her mom, it reads, "How will I ever manage to stumble through this world without her? I have so much more daughter left in me." Having lost my father 3 years ago, even at the age of 54, I felt the same way. Like Brett, I thought that the difference between what you want in life at 14 and what you want and can accomplish at 30-something are probably quite different. However, it seems Brett's mom may have been right. The story of Brett's list and how she goes about completing it are quite a story. This was an enjoyable read!

Angel wrote: "Read Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry in two sittings. Great story! Quick read, too."

I listened to this because it was a book club read for an online group I belong to. I wasn't going to read it because I worried it was more literary than I typically read, but I'm really glad I did. It was very well written, and I enjoyed it from start to finish!

Sandi

BJ wrote: "Just finished Nancy Thayer's newest, "The Guest Cottage." Okay, this author was back to her usual good reads with this book. It was soooo much better than her last one, which I didn't even finish ..."

I love Nancy Thayer's books. I think I'm a bit behind in her. She along with Elin Hilderbrand are two authors I don't think get the publicity they deserve.

Sandi

BJ wrote: "Finished Karen White's "The Sound of Glass" this evening on my dinner break. I was trying to finish before I started work this afternoon and I just had about 5 or 6 pages. I hate when that happen..."

Glad to hear that you enjoyed this. I have it to read, but havne't gotten there yet!

Sandi

Finally finished "The Art of Baking Blind" by Sarah Vaughan. This one unfortunately was just okay for me. It sounded really good on paper and I was excited to get it off hold at the library, but reading it was, for me, difficult. It was written in this kind of odd style where each chapter was named after one of the main characters and kept flipping back and forth. The story was about a baking competition for the new Mrs. Eaden. Mrs. Eaden, Kathleen, was the wife of a grocery store chain owner in England who was really part of the success of the stores. She became an "expert" on cooking and baking, even writing a book called "The Art of Baking." Most of the timeline of this story takes place after she is already dead. So, the book goes back and forth between the current time, during the baking competition, where, Mike, Vickie, Jenny, Claire, and Karen are the participants in the competition, and the 1960s when Kathleen was in her heyday. There are chapters titled Kathleen, Vickie, Jenny, Claire, and Karen. Mike, although a participant is kind of a peripheral character with no chapters of his own. I found it somewhat confusing and hard to follow. Just as you would get interested in one characters story line, it would switch to someone else, and I kept having to look at the synopsis on the book flap to remember which character was which. One was an empty nester, one was described as "perfect," one was a 20-something single mom, and another a 30-something career teacher, turned stay-at-home mom. I did finish the book, but did not "love" it. Not sure I would read this author again.

Finished "Beach Town" by Mary Kay Andrews this morning. Mary Kay Andrews is always on my summer reading list. Beach reads to me, are just that, books that are set at or very near a beach, any beach! In this one, the main character is Greer and she is a movie location scout out to find an old-time type Florida beach town as a setting for her latest movie project. In this book she deals with a dictatorial director, a out of control hip-hop/rapper turned leading man, a new man in her life, a love-sick teenager, and a father that she hasn't seen in 30 years, all while keeping tabs on her movie people and dealing with the problems of her job. As usual, Mary Kay Andrews' writing is sassy and funny and a bit Southern! As always, this author provides an enjoyable read.

Thanks to The Big Library Read held by Overdrive, I read Eyes on You by Kate White. It was surprisingly absorbing. Literally unputdownable...if that was a word.