The Paris Soulmate by Brooke Gilbert

 

Do you believe in soulmates? 

Christine suffers from several rare autoimmune disorders.  She is turning thirty soon and decides it is time to finally go to Paris on her own.  It takes a lot of planning and packing, but she is soon on her way.  At the airport she bumps into a mysterious and handsome British stranger, Colin.  At first, they don’t get along, but by the end of their flight, they are kissing before they land in Paris.  Will they find love in Paris and is it a coincidence that they have met?

I enjoyed this story.  It is a romantic story detailing their relationship, but with underlying angst.  The book is told through both Christine and Colin’s point of views, so the reader is quickly clued in that all is not what it seems with Colin.  It then becomes a love story wondering when the other shoe will drop and what Christine will think about it.

I liked that this novel took a realistic look at what it’s like to suffer from autoimmune diseases.  You can still have fun, but you have to deal with a lot more issues to be able to have fun.  I also liked the Austen references. This book was an insta-love story.    I loved the story being set in Paris as I have always wanted to visit.  It seems like a magical city to fall in love in.

The Paris Soulmate is a clean, sweet read. 

Review Copy from Netgalley and author Brooke Gilbert.   Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book.  Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Book Woman’s Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson

 

Title:  The Book Woman’s Daughter

Author:  Kim Michele Richardson

Narrated by:  Katie Schorr

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 29 minutes

Source: Checked out with Libby through the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

 

What is your favorite sequel to a book or movie you enjoyed?

The Book Woman’s Daughter is the sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek which I just read for my Rogue Book Club back in December.  This book picks up sixteen years after the last book ended.  Sixteen-year-old Honey Lovett finds herself alone after her parents are arrested for being married.  Her mother is a “blue” and her father is white and their marriage breaks the law of intermarriage between races.  Honey is a blue herself.  She picks up her mother’s old pack horse library route and supports herself that way.  Will the law allow her to live on her own?  Will her parents get out of jail?

I thought this novel did an excellent job of the setting in 1950’s Kentucky and captured the area and people of that time.  The characters were well developed and interesting.  I was slightly disappointed that Honey’s parents remained in jail at the end of the novel.  I’m hoping there is a future book to resolve that storyline.  I also thought many of the storylines from the first book were repeated in the second book with now Honey experiencing them.  This book focused on how hard it was to be a woman in rural Kentucky in the 1950s and there is a lot of domestic violence on display.  It was sad, but also uplifting.

Katie Schorr was a great narrator and was the voice of Honey Lovett for me.

While this can be read as a standalone, I think it would work best to read The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek first.  I hope there is another novel and this becomes a trilogy.

 

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

What is your favorite coming of age book, story, or movie?  Two of my all-time favorites are Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  This was my first time reading the coming-of-age novel, A Separate Peace by John Knowles and it was an excellent story.  This novel was chosen as the January selection by the Back to the Classics Book Club at the Kewaunee Public Library.  We had a great discussion about this book.

Set in 1942, intellectual Gene and athletic Phineas are best friends.  They are having a great summer at school until a tragic accident.  How will these two friends move forward?  I had never read this book and was surprised by the story.  I don’t want to ruin it for anyone else.

I liked the deep look at friendship and at bullying in this novel as it related to the different boys at the school. It was interesting to me to also look at how often there is a dominate friend and how does that impact your friendship?  It was a good coming of age story that looked at male bonding, friendship, jealousy, and betrayal.

This was a quick and thoughtful read that is interesting to discuss.  I really liked that it was set as a reflection of a man in the future looking back at the events that happened that summer and how they shaped him.  I thought the setting was fascinating as it was set in 1942 as this generation saw their friends graduate and go off to war.

My edition had a great afterward as well as good questions for a book club.  We went over some of the selections during our meeting.

I did not read this in high school or college, but I think it would be a great book to read in high school.  Although set in a different time period, it involves teenagers and would be more relatable than many of the classic books I read in high school. 

Favorite Quotes:

“Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence.”

“All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attached that way – if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy.”

Book Source:  Purchased from Amazon.com

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

 

Title:  Born a Crime

Author:  Trevor Noah

Narrated by:  Trevor Noah

Publisher: Audible Studios

Length: Approximately 8 hours and 44 minutes

Source: Purchased from Audible.com.  Thank-you!

 Do you have a favorite comedian?  I enjoy Trevor Noah as a comedian, but I was more than a little surprised to discover what a heartfelt memoir he had written.  It definitely has its points of humor, but was also a very serious look at his life growing up.

As the title states, Trevor Noah was born a crime.  His black Xhosa mother and white Swiss father were not allowed to marry or be together in apartheid South Africa. 

"On February 20, 1984, my mother checked into Hillbrow Hospital for a scheduled C-section delivery. Estranged from her family, pregnant by a man she could not be seen with in public, she was alone. The doctors took her up to the delivery room, cut open her belly, and reached in and pulled out a half-white, half-black child who violated any number of laws, statutes, and regulations—I was born a crime."

Noah details his growing up in South Africa with vignettes about his family and friends.  It was a touching and humorous look at life, and a great coming of age memoir.  I really loved that Trevor Noah narrated the audiobook himself.  It made it a very personable experience. 

This audiobook gave me a much deeper understanding of Apartheid in South Africa and how it impacted the various people.  Trevor Noah had to learn how to adapt to different situations based on his color.

We started this on a trip quite awhile ago and finally finished this up in January.    My teenage sons enjoyed it as well.  Trevor Noah does swear and have adult type humor as a warning – but if you’ve listened to him on the Daily Show, it’s the same as you would be used to.  The most horrifying part was listening to the abuse that he and his mother faced from his stepfather, and about his mother’s shooting. 

Overall, this is a memoir you won’t forget.  It is tragedy and comedy all rolled up into one epic story.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

 What is the strangest book you’ve ever read?  Lincoln in the Bardo is definitely going on that list for me.  This was one of the most unique books I’ve ever read.  This was the January pick for the Rogue (FLICKS) Book and Movie Club, and it provides for some good discussion.

In February 1862,  Abraham and Mary Lincoln’s eleven-year-old son, Willie, died of typhoid.  The loss of their son affected both greatly.  It was said that Abraham Lincoln would visit Willie in his crypt and would hold his dead body.  From this historical snippet, Saunders have crafted a great tale that takes place over the first night that Willie is entombed, and Lincoln has come to visit. The graveyard is full of souls that are stuck between life and the afterlife.  The three main souls are Roger Bevins III, a man who committed suicide, Hans Vollman, a man who died when a beam hit him on the night he was going to consummate his marriage with his young wife, and the Reverend Everly Thomas, a pastor who was afraid of going to hell and is stuck in the in between. 

This book is hard to describe.  I read through it quickly.  It was brief snippets of stories told from the various ghosts.  There are over 100 different characters in the book.  You learn about their pasts as well as the current happenings in the cemetery.  There are also chapters that have the history of what was going on at that time.  Some of these snippets are real history from books, and some are made up.  What I found amusing about them is different people remembered different things – the color of someone’s eyes was different depending on the narrator or there was a moon in the sky or not also depending on the narrator.

I enjoyed the unique way this story was put together as it is always fun to read something completely different at times.  It also made me puzzle over life and death during the time that my own grandmother was dying.  The people in the in-between seemed to be caught there as there was something in the real world that they just couldn’t let go.  It could be their wife, or daughters, or something that had been undone.  The pastor was afraid that he would go to hell from what he saw at the end, although he couldn’t think of what he had done wrong.  After they were able to let go, they passed on to the afterlife.  It also made me think about the great love that Lincoln had for his son, and the great loss.  I also thought about the so many parents of that time who were losing their children during the civil war.  It was a thoughtful novel.

Favorite Quotes: 

“I have grown comfortable having these Dead for company, and find them agreeable companions, over there in their Soil & cold stones Houses.”

“Strange, isn’t it?  To have dedicated one’s life to a certain venture, neglecting other aspects of one’s life only to have that venture, in the end, amount to nothing at all, the products of one’s labors utterly forgotten?”

Book Source:  Birthday gift from my friend Jen.

Come What Maybe by Kerri Carpenter (TLC Book Tour)

 

Do you like unexpected surprises or do you like everything planned.  I definitely like everything planned.

Lauren Wallace feels the same way.  She works in social media advertising and likes her life being planned out.  Unfortunately, her family has no idea what she does and does not respect her busy life schedule. She returns home to her small hometown of Seaside Cove, Maine to help out her sister who is having a crisis.  While she enjoys seeing her grandma and her sisters, Grams is a bit cranky.  Lauren needs some time away from her and goes to the local bar where she finds an old high school friend, Ethan McAllister, is now the bar owner.  Sparks fly and Lauren’s life takes a different turn than planned.   How will Lauren move forward in the future?  Does her future include Ethan?  Ethan who has a very different outlook on life than her?

I enjoyed this book.  I loved the characters and the family drama.  I like how Lauren had to really step outside of her comfort zone and look at what she wanted in life moving forward.  She also had to face demons from her own childhood.  Her parents married young, her father abandoned the family, and then her mother passed away from cancer.  Her Grandma raised her and her sisters.  Lauren is desperate not to repeat this scenario and marry someone who will not be there fore her and her family.  But this makes it so she isn’t willing to take risks on love.  I also how cranky her Grandma was how and her and her Grandma worked through their differences and came to a better understanding of each other by the end of the novel.  I love that the community of Seaside Cove was a character too and their gossip drove some of the action.  Lauren and Ethan had a great love story, although Lauren seemed to be the problem in their love story due to miscommunication.

This is both a second chance romance and friends to lovers trope.  The romance was more closed door and low on the steam scale.  I enjoyed it – it was a good story.  With my Grandma passing away recently, it was nice to have a Grandma and Granddaughter relationship in this book as well.  I loved the banter between Ethan and Lauren and found myself chuckling often as I read.

Seaside Cove is a new series of books with this as the first book in the series.  This was the first book I’ve read by Kerri Carpenter and it won’t be my last.  I thought the writing was very engaging.

Review Copy from Entangled Publishing as part of the TLC Book Tour.   Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book.  Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

About Come What Maybe

Mass Market Paperback: 352 Pages

Publisher: Entangled: Amara (January 24, 2023)

Social media strategist Lauren Wallac
e plans everything. But when she returns to the charming–if not too small for comfort–town of Seaside Cove, it’s only about a second before her tough-love Grams is already on her case. So when Grams tells her not to go to that bar, Lauren decides it’s time for a temporary rebellion. Which is exactly when the trouble starts.

Grams was right. The bar was not a good plan. Because suddenly super-cute bar owner Ethan McAllister has gone from being Lauren’s (kind of) high school nemesis to a very unexpected one-night stand. And worse, Lauren’s attempts to resume her ultra-responsible life keep getting thwarted by more unwelcome spontaneity. And a pregnancy.

Now there’s a baby on the way, Lauren’s the talk of the entire town, and all her planning has gone right out the window. All that’s missing is childbirth to make her pain complete. But it’ll be nothing compared to Grams’s reaction when she finds out that Lauren broke the biggest rule of all…falling for the wrong guy.

Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan by Ted Scheinman

 

Title:  Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan

Author:  Ted Scheinman

Narrated by:  Ted Scheinman

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Length: Approximately 3 hours and 43 minutes

Source: Purchased from Audible.com.  Thank-you!

 Do you have a fandom that you are a part of?   Sports, comics, movies, shows, books – there are a lot of things that people become part of a fan group.  Perhaps one of the most surprising would be the worldwide fandom for an author that has been dead for two hundred years, Jane Austen.

 Ted Scheinman is the son of a respected Jane Austen scholar.  He grew up with Jane Austen in the background, but wasn’t a super fan himself.  When he is in graduate school, he got the opportunity to participate in the first ever UNC-Chapel Hill Jane Austen Summer Camp.  Ted becomes immersed in the Janeite world and also attends his first Jane Austen Society of North American (JASNA) conference in Minneapolis as well.  This memoir is part academic discussing Austen’s works and information about the author herself, and also a look at the fans and fandom that is still running strong.  I loved listening to this on audiobook narrated by the author as it really felt like his personal tale.  It’s his experience learning about this fandom and he tells about all of the very different people that inhabit it from scholars to a couple keeping their romance alive with the dances.  He also gets to dress and play the part of Mr. Darcy which sounds like a lot of fun.

 I really loved learning about Rudyard Kipling’s love for Jane Austen and the discussion of the short story he wrote about Janeites who were veterans of the first world war.  I need to find this story!

Author Ted Scheinman was a fun narrator and I really enjoyed listening to his story.

 This was the January selection for the JASNA Northwoods book discussion.  I missed the discussion this month as I was sadly traveling back to Michigan for my Grandma’s funeral.

Overall, this was a fun look into the world of Jane Austen fandom.

Feature: The Thing in the Snow by Sean Adams

What do you like and what do you dislike about snow?  I think snow is beautiful, but I dislike driving in it.

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @williammorrowbooks for the review copy of The Thing in the Snow by Sean Adams and for allowing me to be on this tour.

I'm currently reading this thriller and I am liking is strange and unique premise.  I'll be posting my review in the near future.  

This book is new and was just published on January 3rd.

SYNOPSIS: 

From the critically acclaimed author of The Heap, a thought-provoking and wryly funny novel—equal parts satire and psychological thriller—that holds a funhouse mirror to the isolated workplace and an age of endless distraction. 

At the far reaches of the world, the Northern Institute sits in a vast expanse of ice and snow. Once a thriving research facility, its operations were abruptly shut down after an unspecified incident, and its research teams promptly evacuated. Now it’s home to a team of three caretakers—Gibbs, Cline, and their supervisor, Hart—and a single remaining researcher named Gilroy, who is feverishly studying the sensation of coldness.

Their objective is simple: occupy the space, complete their weekly tasks, and keep the building in working order in case research ever resumes. (Also: never touch the thermostat. Also: never, ever go outside.) The work isn’t thrilling—test every door for excessive creaking, sit on every chair to ensure its structural integrity—but for Hart, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to hone his leadership skills and become the beacon of efficiency he always knew he could be.

There’s just one obstacle standing in his way: a mysterious object that has appeared out in the snow. Gibbs and Cline are mesmerized. They can’t discern its exact shape and color, nor if it’s moving or fixed in place. But it is there. Isn’t it?

Whatever it might be, Hart thinks the thing in the snow is an unwelcome distraction, and probably a huge waste of time. Though, come to think of it, time itself has been a bit wonky lately. Weekends pass in a blur, and he can hardly tell day from night. Gravity seems less-than-reliable. The lights have been flickering weirdly, and he feels an odd thrumming sensation in his beard. Gibbs might be plotting to unseat him as supervisor, and Gilroy—well, what is he really doing anyway?

Perplexed and isolated—but most certainly not alone—Hart wrestles for control of his own psyche as the thing in the snow beguiles his team, upends their work, and challenges their every notion of what is normal.

Flying Solo by Linda Holmes

 Do you collect anything unique?  My Great-Grandparents had some wooden ducks that they collected, and I have some of them displayed in the porch of my home.  This book made me think of them!

Flying Solo was the January Pick for the Page-turners Book Club at the Kewaunee Public Library.  We had a good discussion of this book at our meeting.

Laurie Sassalyn was the only girl growing up with five brothers.  Her Great-Aunt Dot’s house was always a welcome retreat to visit.  Now years later, Laurie has recently cancelled her wedding and is about to turn forty.  Her Great-Aunt has passed away and she has returned home to go settle Aunt Dot’s estate.  Amongst Aunt Dot’s possessions, she finds a mysterious wooden duck.  Why did her Great Aunt Dot have it hidden in a trunk?  As Laurie reconnects with her first love, she works to solve the mystery of the duck.

I enjoyed this novel’s theme of a strong successful woman being okay with living on her own be it Great-Aunt Dot or Laurie.  They aren’t defined by marriage or kids, but find happiness with their friends, family, travels and jobs.  I was mostly roped in by the mystery of the duck and loved seeing how that story played out.  The romance was good, but my book club agreed that the ending was too ambiguous on that end.

I was intrigued to find out the author of this novel, Linda Holmes is one of the hosts of the podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour.  I had just started to listen to and enjoy this podcast about a month ago.  Do you have any favorite podcasts?

Favorite Quote:

“You don’t have to be single to be independent.  And you don’t have to be married to be loved.”

Book Source:  The Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

Cake and Courtship by Mark Brownlow

 

What is your favorite kind of cake?  I love cake.  My favorite cake is carrot cake with cream cheese frosting or German chocolate cake with the coconut frosting. With that being said, I don’t think there is a cake that I don’t like to eat!

Cake and Courtship is the first book in the Mr. Bennet’s Memoirs series.  Cake and Courtship is the January pick for the JASNA Northwoods Book Club.  We’ll be discussing this book this weekend.

Mr. Bennet is the unhappily married father of five daughters in Regency England.  He served in the army in the conflict in America and the son of his best friend that he served with, John Barton, has returned to England after a long stay in Vienna.  Unfortunately, John’s father is not responsible with his money and John is trying to tidy up affairs.  When he is in Bath, he comes across a woman that he falls immediately in love with.  Without family or friends in England, how can he pursue her?  He turns to the one person he does know and trust, Mr. Bennet.  Mr. Bennet feels like he is the last man to give advice on love, but he wants to help out the young man.  He turns to his friends at the Meryton Natural History Society to help him advice.

I loved this novel.  It was a fun Pride and Prejudice variation with a unique point of view.  I’ve never read anything from Mr. Bennet’s point of view, and it left me excited to read the second book in the series.  I’ve always thought Mr. Bennet has a funny wit throughout the original novel.  Author Mark Brownlow perfectly captures Mr. Bennet’s voice and keeps the ironic humor in tack.  I also loved finding out about Mr. Bennet’s own lost love and his youth.  I also liked that Mr. Bennet wasn’t too hard on Mrs. Bennet.  The story of Pride and Prejudice seemed to be happening in the background of Mr. Bennet’s story and I thought it was fun.  I laughed out loud more than once reading this novel.

Favorite Quotes:

“Books are the one luxury I deem a necessity. If my purchases lead us into poverty, then at least we will be well-read paupers.”

“I passed the evening with a glass of port and the rare self-satisfaction of a husband in possession of precious gossip before his wife.”

“Toke’s sermons were the Russian winters of ecclesiastical discourse—rather unpleasant, far too long, and likely to darken the spirits of all who survived them.”

“He was a man of indefatigable charm and wit, and thus worthy of immediate suspicion.”

“Within minutes of his arrival, Mr. Collins described himself as a tool of God. I could well believe it. The good Lord had clearly sent him to test our fortitude.”

Book Source: Purchased this copy from Amazon.com.  Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.