August Book Review

August; you were but a blink of an eye, here & gone so incredibly fast! I always knew that August was going to fly by & it absolutely did! While it was flying, I kept up my reading streak! Let's get to the books I read for the month of August!

The It Girl by Ruth Ware: Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious & the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, the developed a group of devoted & inseparable friends - Will, Hugh, Ryan & Emily - during their first term. By the end of the second, April was dead. 

Now, a decade later, Hannah & Will are expecting their first child, & the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah's world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking & presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends & delves deeper into the mystery of April's death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide... including a murder. 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐of five: This was a really intriguing book, filled with twists & turns... some of which I predicted & some that I didn't! I loved that it was set in Oxford because I've been to some of the locations mentioned, so that was fun! Ruth Ware continues to write such great mystery & thriller stories!

It End with Us by Colleen Hoover: Lily hasn't always had it easy, but that's never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She's come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up - she graduated from college, moved to Boston, & started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily's life suddenly seems almost too good to be true. 

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He's also sensitive, brilliant & has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn't hurt. Lily can't get him out of her head. But Ryle's complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his "no dating" rule, she can't help but wonder what made him that way in the first place. 

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan - her first love & a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened. 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐of five: This book was NOT what I was expecting! I had seen the movie previews & the hype surrounding the book, so I grabbed a copy thinking I was in for a delightful rom-com style read. The book is very much about domestic violence with a little romance thrown in... but I was completely surprised that is was much heavier than I had anticipated! Having said that - I would like to read the follow up to it, It Begins with Us.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore: Early morning, August 1975; a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn't just any thirteen-year-old: she's the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp & employs most of region's residents. And this isn't the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara's older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found. 

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family & the blue-collar community working in it's shadow, Moore's multi-threaded story invites readers into & rich & gripping dynasty of secrets & second chances. It is Liz Moore's most ambitious & wide-reaching novel yet. 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐of five: Another book that wasn't quite what I thought it would be. The story was compelling & kept me intrigued, but I guess I thought there might be a bit more to it than rich people getting away with things. *shrugs* It was a good read - just not quite the read I thought I was getting.

Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams: New England, 2022. Three years ago, single mother Mallory Dunne received the telephone call every parents dreads - her ten year old son, Sam, had been airlifted from summer camp with acute poisoning from a toxic death cap mushroom, leaving him fighting for his life. Now, searching for a donor kidney that will give her son a chance for a normal life, Mallory's forced to confront two harrowing secrets from her past: her mother's adoption from an infamous Irish orphanage in 1952, and her own all-consuming summer romance fourteen years earlier with her childhood best friend, Monk Adams - one of the world's most beloved singer-songwriters - a fairy tale cut short by a devastating betrayal. 

Cairo, 1951. After suffering tragedy beyond comprehension in the war, Hungarian refugee Hannah Ainsworth has forge a respectable new life for herself - marriage to a wealth British diplomat with a coveted posting in glamorous Cairo. But a fateful encounter with the enigmatic manager of a hotel bristling with spies leads to a passionate affair that will reawaken Hannah's longing for everything she once lost. As revolution simmers in the Egyptian streets, a pregnant Hannah finds herself snared in a game of intrigue between two men... and an act of sacrifice that will echo down the generations. 

Timeless and bittersweet, Husband & Lovers takes readers on an unforgettable journey of heartbreak and redemption, from the revolutionary fires of midcentury Egypt to the moneyed beaches of contemporary New England. 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5 out of five: This book was far more delightful than I expected; I mean, the synopsis was obviously enough to interest me but this book was a bit different than I was expecting in a great way! I loved the family ancestry and the history intertwined in the story; I thought it was all really great. The characters were (mostly) loveable and the storyline was fantastic! Definitely my favorite read this month! 

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And that's August - done! I cannot believe there are just four more months left in 2024! I am almost to my goal, so I think it's safe to say I'll surpass it this year! 

The Last Week of August

One might wonder if this was going to become a cat-heavy blog and I suppose maybe it will ... they just do so many funny things and since I am not ready to fully share our house yet, what I can offer you is silly cat antics! Loki is definitely the alpha male for our two silly kittens, while Spook just kind of follows along with Loki's antics! 

The kittens are getting much more adventurous in their explorations - we arrived home mid-week last week to discover they'd knocked over my flowers and also dug in the plant sitting on the corner of the counter, so we had to reassess. They were initially hesitant about us, but they are getting over that uncertainty even more each day! They are definitely not uncertain about hopping onto every chair, table and spot they can access to investigate - every space must be explored! 

Loki has truly gotten bold over the weekend; he absolutely wanted to sample my pizza on Saturday at lunch, even going so far as to reach out and bat his paws at my plate! We have been blessed to have my parents come over and help us get things organized and in place - Ryan and my Dad were able to put up a huge storage unit that Ryan's mom gave us over a year ago, so now we have tons more storage for things like our bikes, the grill, and tons of outdoor stuff. 

We also got curtains hung in our bedroom and finally got WiFi on Sunday; the Comcast guy finished up just in time for us to make it to second service at church! I think the house is finally almost complete with the basics - if only we can get our washer and dryer delivered, we will be in business! The kittens seem to be fascinated by the TV once we got it all set up; they definitely are paying some attention to what's on TV! 

The weekend passed so quickly because we were busy trying to get the house to a more livable place - so that once we come back from Norway, it will be business as usual. I leave you with a picture of Spook, attempting to "garden" with my indoor plant - hopefully he won't completely destroy it now that I've moved it (hopefully) out of his reach. 

It's Time to Travel Again!

 

It's time once again to travel abroad; next Friday, August 30 - we are bound for Norway; the land of fjords, Vikings and the northern lights! This trip has been in the works since Christmas of 2023 and we are so looking forward to getting to finally see a portion of the Nordic/Scandinavian countries!

We will be focusing our trip on Southern Norway - we quickly discovered that the journey from Oslo (the capital) to Tromso takes twenty hours via car; so we had to pick a region and stick with it. Since we are flying into Oslo, we decided to target the southern region of the country - which will allow for taking in tons of lovely villages, fjords, mountain ranges and more! 

We will be taking in the towns/locations of Oslo, Geiranger, Bergen, Stavanger and Kristiansand and all the lovely locations in between! Ryan and I will be hiking to the summit of Pulpit Rock mid-week and I know we have at least one fjord cruise planned during the week! Something tells me that Norway will be one of the most gorgeous place Ryan and I have ever been - I cannot wait!

So - while these are just generic stock pictures of the land that is Norway - which means Northern Way, in case you didn't know - I can't wait to go explore and then come back and share all the gorgeous sites with you here on the blog!

Loki & Spook

We are now a family of four - two humans and two little furballs - kittens, to be exact! We picked up our little guys on Sunday evening around 6:45 and they have been keeping us amused ever since; which is a good thing since we don't have Wi-Fi until Sunday, ha-ha! 

The boys were born to a cat that just wandered up at my boss' house pregnant - so to say they were born wild is a true statement. However; from the time they were tiny, they have been around their foster family - so they aren't completely feral or anything, ha-ha! Having said that - they still aren't too sure about us as their new humans! We are slowly coaxing them out with treats and evening food/play time and they are getting more social every day. 

They are well-trained with their litter box and for the most part, don't seem to be too bad about clawing things... although who knows what they get up to when we are at work during the day? Suffice it to say, I haven't yet come home to anything damaged or destroyed (knock on wood). It seems their favorite place to relax is in the front window sills where they can soak up sunlight and watch the world passing by out front - it's always cute to see them sitting in the window when I get home from work. 

So far - they are very motivated by treats and food - but hey, who isn't? They still seem a little more skittish than I'd like to see them, so we are going to try some calming chews and a diffuser that emits some calming pheromones that help with stress and anxiety; it's a whole new situation for them and I am trying to remind myself that it will take some time for them to come around to us completely. 

We are definitely enjoying watching their silly antics as they play around the house, learning to play on their cat tower and especially when Spook sees his reflection and seems to be wondering "who is that handsome devil of a cat that I'm staring at?" Ha-ha! They seem to know their names pretty well - their foster family used their names in the weeks leading up to us adopting them, so when we call them they usually look at us and if they think there is food - they'll come! 

They are certainly keeping us amused and I know they will for a long while yet - so here's hoping we have a future of funny cat antics, snuggles and purrs.