I read a lot of great books last year but honestly it wasn’t difficult to narrow down my favorites. The long list had just 14 titles and it was even easier to cut out four more. The order below just happens to start with the most recent read and the links are either to my review on SQ or the Amazon listing when my review isn’t available.1. A Million Junes. A great magical realism read.2. A Treacherous Curse. The third…
Bonjour and happy Wednesday! For this WW I am happy to be a part of the blog tour for Brooklyn in Love, the latest book by Amy Thomas. I followed Amy’s blog, God I Love Paris, while she was working there for a few years and I enjoyed reading her first book, Paris, My Sweet. Her blog posts from her time there were short but thoughtful and Paris, My Sweet gave readers a deeper background into her stay in the…
I cannot say that I am a fan of the fantasy genre but when Kevin Hearne announced this series I knew I had to give it a shot. I really love The Iron Druid Chronicles; there are eight books out right now (ninth and final is coming out this year) and each book is such a strong contribution to the series, which is unusual to have every book be great when you get above four or five books. A Plague of…
A Million Junes is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It was as unique as you can’t imagine and features romantic, family, and platonic love. It is about processing your family history and your personal future. It is about figuring out what you want from life and deciding how to live it. It is about making the best and hardest decisions rather than the easy ones. If you like magical realism and feeling things when you read books,…
I liked a lot of things about Flame in the Dark. The main story arc is good, always moves forward, and captures your attention. I have two main issues with this book: there’s a lot of rambling in the middle of narration and big problems aren’t addressed in a timely manner. I’ve noticed both of these issues is the more recent Faith Hunter books, both this and the Jane Yellowrock series. I think I got hooked on the latter before…
I really love this series. It might be my second favorite of all time (the top spot goes to the Parasol Protectorate series (also at the time of posting this the entire series in Kindle format is $16.99- a STEAL), of course). This is the third book in the Veronica Speedwell Mysteries and I seem to love each book more and more. I laughed all through this book and kept a running list of new sophisticated Victorian words to learn. As…
Despite suffering while reading about this nightmare apartment renovation when my own kitchen redo was to start in just a few days, I really enjoyed reading this memoir. The beginning is a much more enjoyable read than later pages; he touches on his moving from Paris to San Francisco and shares humorous (and personal) stories of doing his best to integrate with Parisian culture. It has a more personal slant than his other food-based books, but there is still plenty…
I really enjoyed reading the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, so when I saw a magna version on the shelf I was intrigued. If you’re not familiar with the book, Marie Kondo is an author and consultant on tidying up. She has you sort all of your possessions by type and then ask if each item brings you joy. In the full book she goes into much more detail, often too much, and I think that the manga version is…
Oh, Shakespeare and Company. I’ve been to this store twice, the first time to buy a tote bag in 2014 and the second time to buy another tote along with a copy of To Capture What We Cannot Keep earlier this year. I knew it wasn’t the same store as the one that the Lost Generation frequented, but I had no idea of its rich history or what an interesting person George Whitman was. I first thought this book would…
Marie-Laure lives in Paris with her father and is blind from age 6. She has memorized the model of their Paris neighborhood that her father made her from wood and loves to read Jules Verne. Werner is a German boy who lives in a group home with his sister. He teaches himself how to fix a radio they found and they listen in secret while the other children are sleeping. We get to see Marie-Laure and Werner grow up into…