September was a slower reading month for me in amount of time and number of books read, but I packed some goodies in. Work has been a bear with long hours and long weeks. If it wasn’t for 2 work trips that gave me a few long travel days, I wouldn’t have even read as much as I was able to. But quality prevailed over quantity and I wound up with a nice stack completed. I have definitely slowed down on requesting ARCS and you will see that in the months to come, I am almost finished with my ARC commitments for 2024 and will be able to focus on my TBR list and backlist.
The Berry Pickers – Amanda Peters
4.5 I think this could have been a 5* for me but I started on audio, which I found to be a very rough narration. I managed to snag a library copy for the last 25% and finished up reading – which salvaged the book for me.
We follow two families, one a Mi’kmaq tribal family who travels from Nova Scotia to Maine in summer to pick berries on a farm. On one fateful day, their four year-old daughter Ruthie disappears. The story in this viewpoint is told of the deep loss her unsolved disappearance causes each family member, particularly her brother, Joe.
We also meet Norma, the daughter of well off family in Maine and follow her very, very sheltered life. Norma is somewhat haunted by dreams that seem more like memories. As the years pass Norma begins to realize that there are deep secrets in her family. The story continues to follow the past of these families bound together by that one day.
The Berry Pickers is a beautiful written, emotional novel that will stick with me. I recommend reading this one vs listening.
🍷🍷🍷🍷1/2
The Sequel – Jean Hanff Korelitz
The Sequel is the sequel to The Plot and it was very entertaining. I listened to the audio book and narrator Julia Whelan again knocked it out of the park. I did quickly check out the digital copy of The Plot and skimmed it for a brief recap to refresh and glad I did so. And if you have not yet read The Plot, you should do that first to get the most out of the story.
Generally speaking, I feel a little ick when I find a character that is pretty much a horrible person and total psychopath/sociopath somewhat likable, amusing and entertaining, but that is exactly what happened here. I also usually take issue when a sequel contains so much of the same info as book 1 – but in this case it just works. It is part of the experience.
Anna Williams-Bonner is living the life of grieving widow of literary best seller Jacob Bonner, and what does she decide to do? Write a book of course. As she progresses to publication and book tour, she begins to be tormented by pieces of the original manuscript that haunted Jacob and it all takes off from there. Anna is a totally chilling delight, you will love to hate on her a bit and be very amused by her inner voice and tendencies. I generally prefer a book in print over audio for these types of stories, but Whelan delivers such a strong reading of The Sequel that I very much recommend going the audio route on this one. Enjoy! Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advance audio copy. The Sequel is now available.
🍷🍷🍷🍷
Blue Sisters – Coco Mellors
Character driven novel about the 4 Blue sisters, 3 of which are still heavily grieving at the one year anniversary of the death of their sister Nicki. This one is very, very sad and these women are seriously messed up. But your heart will rip open for them and even among their horrible choices, empathy will abound. I really had a hard time with the a fairly big part of the story line and it really bothered me (don’t want to spoil!), but things do wind up wrapping up with that a bit for at least some understanding. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House – Ballentine for an advance copy in exchange for my honest opinion. Blue Sisters is now available.
🍷🍷🍷🍷
Husbands & Lovers – Beatriz WIlliams
Husbands & Lovers is a dual timeline novel; the recent timeline is 2022 and then we jump back and forth with Cairo 1951. I did not know very much about the revolution in Cairo in the 1950’s, so I did learn a lot however I was more drawn to the storyline in the more current time frame. There we have Mallory who is a single mom raising a son with a very serious illness and is also faced with secrets from her late-mother’s past as well as unrequited love from long ago. I found the book very entertaining and woven together well, although many parts of it were really out there and rather unbelievable. Leave your plausibility hat to the side on this one.
🍷🍷🍷🍷
The Swimmer – Loreth White
I kept trudging through this one since I had enjoyed other books by this author, but I should have put it down. Very repetitive and just so far out there on so many levels. To me, it felt like someone else wrote this. Thank you to NetGalley and Montlake for an advance copy in exchange for my honest opinion. The Swimmer is now available.
🍷🍷1/2
