What the Trees Remember by Abigail Cutter

 Where was the setting of the last book that you read?  I am intrigued by the Appalachian mountain setting in this book.

In 1969, an old woman Dora Minor, awakens to a terrible flood.  Clinging to her dogs and riding out the storm, Dora thinks back over her life.  She was born a Quaker in that very house on a mountain in Virginia. Her grandmother, Alma, raised her after her mother’s death from childbirth and her father’s mysterious death.  What secrets will the flood waters reveal?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This was a beautifully written novel.  It created a visual picture in my mind to describe the mountain and its inhabitants.

·       It was a great story with well-developed interesting characters and an intriguing and unique storyline.

·       This story was set in the post-Civil War era primarily with some flash forwards to 1969.

·       This novel showed the social unrest that happened after the Civil War as people were trying to come up with the new normal.  A tragic event occurs in the novel and sadly the detailed notes at the end describe how it was based on a true story.

·       Dora’s father Tom taught a school with a formerly enslaved woman, Ginny, for black children.  There was a need for education and unfortunately the townspeople would not provide it.

·       I keep thinking about this book and the trying times after the Civil War.  It took so much work and time for formerly enslaved people to really receive the full rights of citizens. 

·       The flood in 1969 was devastating and based on a real event.

·       I had some maternal ancestors that were Quakers and lived in the Appalachian mountains so this was extra intriguing to me imagining what their lives were like.

·       I loved the friendships in the novel and how they stuck together through good and bad times.

·       Sometimes doing what is right is dangerous.  True freedom was built on the sacrifice of many.

Favorite Quote:  “She’s read what St. Thomas of Aquinas had said about sin; the greatest was turning a blind eye those who most needed help.”

Overall, What the Trees Remember by Abigail Cutter was a beautifully written southern historical fiction novel that truly captured the story of social unrest after the Civil War.  I will be thinking about this story for a long time. 

Book Source:  Thank-you to Get Red PR, Abigail Cutter, and She Writes Press for a review copy of the novel as part of the book tour.

A Chance for Kallie Mae by Ann H. Gabhart

If you can read books from only one genre for the rest of your life, what genre would it be?  That’s a hard one for me as I love so many different genres, but it would probably be historical fiction.

Kallie Me has grown up in the Appalachian Mountains dreaming of going to school to learn to read and of her love for Quinn Spencer.  After her mother dies, Kallie Mae must put away her dreams to raise her infant sister.  Her father won’t put aside his feud with the Spencers and Kallie Mae is no longer able to visit Quinn.  Now six years later, Kallie Mae runs into Quinn again and old feelings flare.  Will she be able to chase her dreams after all?

My thoughts on this novel:

• This is a Romeo & Juliet or forbidden romance story between Kallie Mae and Quinn.  I enjoyed this love story.  It was well developed, romantic, and sweet.  They were both hardworking, caring people who took care of their families.  They were perfect for one another.

• This was a lovely story and I enjoyed reading it back in May.

• This book could be classified as Southern fiction, historical romance, and family drama. It was also a clean read with Christian themes of forgiveness and reconciliation.

• It is set in Kentucky in 1911.

• I loved the complex characters that were well written and fleshed out.  I especially loved wise old Aunt Sudie and little sister Emmie.

• I was intrigued to learn about Cora Wilson Stewart, the founder of adult literacy in the United States.  This was new history to me.

• The story uses Appalachian dialogue.

Overall, A Chance for Kallie Mae by Ann H. Gabhart was an engaging historical romance with great characters and story. I enjoyed the new to me history on adult literacy education in the United States.

Book Source:  Thank-you to @annhgabhart @revellfiction @greatreadsbookpromo for a review copy of the novel as part of the Great Reads Promo Book Tour.

Thirty Days to Home by Cathryn Rakich

 

Do you have any rescue pets?  Our dog Spot is a rescue dog originally from Texas.  His name was Spot the ranch dog and he was moved to Wisconsin to make way for dogs after Hurricane Harvey.  He still is not a fan of snow and ice but Spot the ranch dog is now a happy Wisconsin dog.

Marli May has faced the greatest heartbreak a mother can with the loss of her teenage son. Trying to reconnect with her husband after the loss, she goes with him on a work retreat to Escondido, Mexico.  While there, her world further falls apart when she discovers her husband is having an affair with a coworker.  On top of that, she receives a mysterious text stating that her son’s death may not have been an accident after all.  After finding a stray dog on the street who needs her help, will this be enough to bring Marli back from the brink of despair?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I liked the added mystery of what really happened to Marli’s son.

·       I love books the involve dogs and rescue dogs are even better!

·       I also loved Ben, the handsome widower vet that Marli meets in Mexico, but I also thought it was too soon for a new romance.

·       I liked that Marli’s friend Tammy came down to visit and support Marli in Mexico. On the other hand, something seemed off about her and she wanted to cheat on her husband while on vacation which gave me a weird vibe.

·       I also liked that Marli cared for her mother, Alice, who had Alzheimer’s.  It was a realistic description of how tough care can be in such a situation.  Caring for your parents at the end of their lives would be hard.

·       There was suspense near the end of the novel.

·       I thought I had the ending figured out – but I was surprised.  Great ending.

·       Marli and Ben were my favorite characters and were very well written.  I loved their compassion for dogs and people in need.

·       It was hard to believe that this was a debut novel.

·       This novel dealt with grief and was an emotional read.

·       I would classify this as contemporary, women’s fiction, family drama, dogs, second chance romance, mystery.

Overall, Thirty Days to Home by Cathryn Rakich was an entertaining and engaging novel featuring great characters and dogs.

Book Source:  Review copy from @booksparks. Thank-you!

Served Him Right by Lisa Unger

 

Title:  Served Him Right

Author:  Lisa Unger

Narrated by:  Kristen Sieh, Vivienne Leheny, Brittany Pressley, Soneela Nankani, Tim Paige, Petrea Burchard

Publisher: Harlequin Audio

Length: Approximately 12 hour and 8 minutes

Source: Review copy from NetGalley.  Thank-you!

How do you feel about revenge stories?  My favorite is The Count of Monte Cristo.

Ana Blacksmith has recently broken up with her boyfriend Paul.  She organizes a celebration brunch with her sister and best friends.  When Paul is found dead, Ana is a suspect. When one of her friends falls deathly ill after the brunch, Ana rises to the top of the suspect list.  Will Ana and her sister Vera be able to prove her innocence?

My thoughts on this book:

·       This was a very engaging thriller.

·       This was great on audiobook.  It captured my attention and made it so I didn’t want my drives to end.  I loved the cast of narrators.

·       Paul is shown to have many enemies and to be a terrible person.  Why is it that people like that are able to keep hurting people?

·       I liked that the story had the ladies be a part of a family that practices “magic” through the use of herbalism.

·       The book had a riveting and scary intro for a poor woman who is r$%^ed by a boss who drugs her after staying late at work.

·       This book made me ponder the question of taking justice into your own hands – when are you justified?

·       I liked the naughty romance between Ana and the detective on the case, Timothy.

·       There were many point of views in this story.

·       I kept guessing until the end.

Overall, Served Him Right by Lisa Unger was a riveting and engaging thriller.

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

 

What book has Instagram or other social media convinced you to read?  I kept seeing Yesteryear everywhere, so I read it last month.

Natalie Heller Mills is an Instagram “trad wife” living a seemingly perfect life. She lives on a beautiful farm in Idaho with her cowboy husband and six kids.  Behind the scenes nannies, farmhands and a producer keep the perfect life alive for social media.  When Natalie wakes up one day in the past and must live without modern conveniences, will she make it?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I see mixed reactions to this book online.  People seem to love it or hate it.  I liked it, it was a unique story, and I couldn’t stop reading it.

·       The characters are not likeable, but I did want to see what would happen next.

·       The twist in the story was interesting, I had suspected it, but I was not one hundred percent sure how it would work.

·       It is interesting to think about the power of social media and how it can show things to be 100% different than reality.  It seems like a lot of problems now are that people believe in “realities” that don’t really exist such as the “perfect” life you see in pictures that is not actually reality.  This book also showed how politics and social media are intertwined.

·       I find the “trad wife” trend confusing.  Do women really want to the live the life of our ancestors without having rights and modern conveniences?  I am 100% behind women that want to stay home and raise their kids, but I am not behind women who think that their lifestyle is the only way that women must live.  I didn’t think I would be living in a world that is talking about taking away women’s right to vote.

·       The book show the hypocrisy that even the women who say they want traditional roles are not really following them themselves.  It reminded me of Serena Joy from The Handmaid’s Tale.

·       Natalie’s point of view moves through time to show how her and her husband got together initially and their life leading up to the start of the book.

·       This would be a good book for a book club discussion.

·       This book is hard to classify – maybe contemporary, mystery, speculative, psychological thriller.

·       SPOILER ALERT – I did feel like Natalie is made out to be the villain when she was more the victim of her upbringing, postpartum depression, and from being drugged.

Overall, Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke was a unique and thought-provoking novel that I think would be great for a book club discussion.

Book Source:  Review copy from NetGalley.  Thank-you!

Happy Place by Emily Henry

 

Title:  Happy Place

Author:  Emily Henry

Narrated by:  Julia Whelan

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Length: Approximately 11 hour and 3 minutes

Source: Purchased from Audible

Where is your happy place?  Is it a place or a person?

Harriet and Wyn have been a couple since college and are a fixture in their group of friends.  They broke up five month ago and have not told their friends.  Now it is the annual getaway for their friend group in May and they are sharing a bedroom.  Will they be able to make it through and keep their friends?  Will they find love again?  Why did they break up?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I am a mood reader, and I was not in the mood for this book.  I listened to it on audiobook.  The narrator was great, but the storyline and characters did not engage me.  I was annoyed at Harriet and Wyn for lying to everyone.  I really hated miscommunication in books.

·       This was my first Emily Henry book.  She is raved about on Instagram – is there a better book by her that I should read?

·       I did not really like the characters.  The side characters were all one dimensional and Wyn was not a great hero.

·       Spicy scenes were included.

·       I was let down when the book finally told why they broke up.  I was like, really?

·       This book could be classified as contemporary, fake relationship, second chance romance.

·       I loved that Harriet loved to read cozy mysteries.

·       This was the June pick for the Rogue Book Club and the July pick for the Page-turners book club at the Kewaunee Public Library.  Is this a great book club book?  I didn’t think so.  It was a book of mostly angst with not much action.

·       I thought the ending was a part of the living in a different world of privilege.  SPOILER ALERT:  Harriet is going to school to be a doctor and decides to leave it all to become a potter.  Most people I know would not be able to do this.  That’s a lot of money and loans to throw away and somehow must be paid back.  I do believe in second chances and making a change, but most people would need to finish up and work as a doctor for awhile to pay off this debt.

Overall, Happy Place by Emily Henry was an angsty book that wasn’t for me.  What book has disappointed you lately?

 

Not Your Founding Father by Nina Sankovitch

 

Title:  Not Your Founding Father

Author:  Nina Sankovitch

Narrated by:  Em Grosland

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 12 hour and 27 minutes

Source: Physical Book Review copy from Simon & Schuster #HistoryBuffsBookClub. @History_In_Five Thank-you!  Audiobook purchased on Audible.

What book do you still plan to finish in July?  It’s hard to believe we only have one week left of this month!

On October 9, 1776, Jemima Wilkinson died on her small farm in Cumberland, Rhode Island, and Public Universal Friend was born.  Public Universal Friend started to preach about their rebirth as a genderless disciple of God.  Will they be able to start their church in this new land?

My thoughts on this book:

·       I thought this book would be a great read to help celebrate the 250^th birthday of the United States of America.

·       Friend followed Galatians 3:28 that “there is neither male nor female in Christ.”

·       Friend helped empower women.  Friend preached that women should “obey God rather than men.”  Women took on leading roles in this church.  The church also advocated for freeing of slaves and the inclusion of children.

·       I liked that the author wrote about Friend having no role in politics, but living the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the new land and testing the boundaries of this idealism.

·       What would our country stand for as it was first being formed?

·       Does our country allow for freedom of religion?  At the time of our founding, it did.  Christian Nationalism now tells a different version of history.

·       I wouldn’t call Friend a “founding father,” but more an influential pastor of the time of the founding of the United States.

·       At times I wondered, were Friends followers a cult?

·       This book really showed me that trans/nonbinary people have always existed. Friend didn’t want pronouns used. 

·       Friend’s near-death experience changed the entire course of their life.

·       Author Nina Sankovitch did great research to bring this forgotten part of history to life.

·       There were great notes, bibliography, and index in the physical copy.

·       The audiobook had a good narrator and was interesting to listen to.

Overall, Not Your Founding Father by Nina Sankovitch was an interesting nonfiction book that brought out a forgotten part of the history during the forming of the United States that tested the boundaries of what the new nation would stand for.

The Bachelor Spy by Pepper Basham

 

Who is your favorite spy in literature or film?  I really liked George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carre, and now I can add Stephen Blake as a new favorite spy from this novel

Stephen Blake is a spy for England and his work is incredibly important for the war effort (WWI). After surviving a devastating betrayal and the sinking of the Lusitania, he finds himself assigned to his cousin’s home that is being used as a convalescence hospital, Havensbroke Hall.  His mission is to try to find the German spy known as the Midnight Angel.  Will he succeed?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This was a delightful historical mystery and romance with espionage and spies set during WWI.

·       This is the fifth novel in the “A Freddie & Grace Mystery” series.  This is the first book I have read in the series.  It can be read as a standalone, but it would be great to read the series in order.  I was confused on Zahra and her background in the story. Is she adopted?  Is she Freddie’s biological child?  Something else? I need to read the rest of the series to figure it out. 

·       I read that this may be the last book in the series.  I definitely need to read the first four books!

·       I loved the banter and enemies to lovers romance between Stephen and Evie.

·       Grace is home alone at the estate trying to keep it and the convalesce hospital running while her husband, Freddie, is off fighting in WWI.  She begins to suspect that all is not what it seems and there is a spy or two in the midst.  How will she keep everyone safe and solve the mystery?

·       I loved that Freddie is in the royal engineers.  I enjoyed Freddie and Grace’s relationship and want to see the buildup in the previous books.

·       This was a fun story with even a treasure hunt involved.

·       I loved the characters, adventure, suspense, and humor in this novel.

·       It was also an inspirational, Christian, and clean read.

·       There were plenty of red herrings and the mystery kept me guessing.

·       I enjoyed the epilogue and conclusion of the story.

Overall, The Bachelor Spy by Pepper Basham was a delightful historical mystery and romance set during WWI with humor, suspense, spies, espionage, and great characters. 

Book Source:  Thank-you to @pepperbasham @barbourbooks @greatreadsbookpromo for a review copy of the novel as part of the Great Reads Promo Book Tour.

The Making of Asian America by Erika Lee

 Title:  The Making of Asian America

Author:  Erika Lee

Narrated by:  Emily Woo Zeller

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Length: Approximately 15 hours and 51 minutes

Source: Purchased from Audible.com and physical book from @History_In_Five #HistoryBuffsBookClub Thank-you!

What book have your read recently that taught you a lot?

Asian Americans are the fastest growing group in America (I’m not sure how the last year has impacted this statistic).  This book tells the story of the deep roots Asian Americans have in the country up to present day.

My thoughts on this book:

·       I read this book in May, and it was one of my favorite reads of the month.

·       I am sad to say that I am very lacking on my knowledge of Asian Americans in the history of the United State.  This book did a great job of catching me up on the basics.

·       Asian Americans have been settling America since the very beginning of our country.

·       We should all be worried about how the 14^th amendment has ended up in the news again.  In the past, groups tried to void this amendment to keep out citizens born in our country that were Asian or non-white.

·       Asian Americans are from many different countries from immigration through the centuries.  They all have their own story and this book tried to give brief accounts of many different types of Asian Americans.

·       Asian American are “model immigrants” that are highly successful, but it also true that they are immigrants that struggle and are among the poorest.

·       I never knew about Hmong people and how they helped the US military during Vietnam until I was in college and my Wisconsin roommate told me about them.  They have settled primarily in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.  An image from the immigration crackdowns in Minneapolis this past winter was of an old Hmong legal immigrant being arrested in the bitter cold in his underwear.  I am still haunted by this.

·       Hispanic immigrants are constantly in the news, but the number one immigrants in the United States are Asians including illegal immigrants.  Immigration needs to be reformed.

·       I will be thinking about this book for a long time.  I learned so much and is it just the surface of learning about Asian Americans.

·       This book has been recently updated for modern times including the violence against Asian American that has surfaced in this decade.

·       The audiobook had a great narrator, and I didn’t want to stop listening to it!

Overall, The Making of Asian America by Erika Lee is a thought-provoking book to learn about history of Asian Americans in the United States.  I will be referencing this book in the future.

These Empty Places by Sarah Loudin Thomas

Title:  These Empty Places

Author:  Sarah Loudin Thomas

Narrated by:  Pilar Witherspoon

Publisher: Recorded Books

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 9 minutes

Source: Purchased from Audible.com and physical copy from @sarahloudinthomas @bethanyhousefiction @greatreadsbookpromo   Thank-you!

Do you have a favorite story that involves forgiveness?  The Hiding Place by Carrie Ten Boom is one of my favorites and this book, These Empty Places by Sarah Loudin Thomas was another great story of forgiveness.

These Empty Places by Sarah Loudin Thomas is a story of two women.  One woman, Claire Roth, is a widow in her 40s that has a second chance of love.  Will she take it?  The other woman is Lena Hawkins, a socialite who married a man of lower social standing.  When things do not go as planned in either of their lives, will these two woman be able to help one another?

My thoughts on this book:

·       I read and enjoyed this book in May and I’m finally getting my review posted.

·       This story was set in North Carolina in the 1930s.

·       I loved the imagery of the dam bursting at the start of the novel and a woman waiting for years with the belief that the lake she loves will be refilled.

·       There is a mystery in the story of Claire’s first true love who she didn’t marry, but who threw a box with an item in it that was important to starting their life together, in the lake.  Does this box still exist?  What is in it?

·       Claire hires Lena to be her assistant, but also to be a new librarian for the library she wants to build.

·       Claire’s daughter contracts polio and it is a good reminder of how terrifying it was before the polio vaccine. 

·       Lena’s husband Preston is a speculator which is how they lost their money.  When he starts to perhaps be involved in underground deals, what will Lena do?

·       The story really shines in the second half with a theme of forgiveness and of moving on in life from past hurts.

·       What is important in life?  Chasing treasure or appreciating what you have?

·       There is also a great theme of pursuing your own dreams.  What makes you happy and fulfilled versus what you are told should make you happy.

·       This book could be classified as a second chance romance, later in life romance, inspirational, dual POV, and friendship novel.

·       I loved how Claire helped so many people.

·       This was great on audiobook and kept me entertained.  I enjoyed narrator Pilar Witherspoon.

Overall, These Empty Places by Sarah Loudin Thomas was an inspirational book of forgiveness, love, friendship, and chasing your own dreams.  It was a lovely story.