July in Review - Favorite Reads

July was one hot and often humid month, we even canceled some getaway plans because of the frequency of thunderstorms and uncomfortable outdoor temps.  I'm actually surprised that I only read (9) books and (3) of them were children's picture books as well.

Our book group read for July was one I had already read and enjoyed: Before the Fall; Noah Hawley. Almost every club member enjoyed this book and thought it made for a lively discussion. 

Favorite Reads in July

1. The Pawed Piper; Michelle Robinson - 5/5 (my shelves-July)
2. Sea Glass Summer; Michelle Houts - 5/5 (my shelves-July)
3. Bear's Book; Claire Freedman - 5/5 (my shelves-July)
4. Ask Again, Yes; Mary Beth Keane - 5/5 - (combo/audio/eBook-July)
5. Before the Fall; Noah Hawley - 4.5/5 (bookclub read-July/reread)
6. If She Wakes; Michael Koryta - 4/5 - (ARC/my shelves-July)
7. Searching for Sylvie Lee; Jean Kwok - 3.5/5 (eGalley-July)
8. Summer of 69; Elin Hilderbrand - 5/5 (print/library-July)
9. Chances Are; Richard Russo - 5/5 (audio and eGalley-July)

Places visited in July: New York, Maine, Martha's Vineyard, The Netherlands, Nantucket Island and back to Martha's Vineyard a second time.

Breakdown

Fiction - 9  NF - 0 - YTD - 91

Audios - 2

eBooks - 2

print     - 5
ARCS/Review Books - 7

audio/eBook Combos - 2

Borrowed from Library - 2

Off my Shelves - 4

DNF - 1 - Women Rowing North: Navigating  Life's Currents & Flourishing As We Age; M. Pipher - 

August Plans (so far)

The Last Resort; Marissa Stapley - in progress The Harmony Resort promises hope for struggling marriages. Run by celebrity power couple Drs. Miles and Grace Markell, the “last resort” offers a chance for partners to repair their relationships in a luxurious setting on the gorgeous Mayan Riviera.

Keeping Lucy; T. Greenwood - (eGalley) in progress 
"A baby born less than perfect in the world's eyes, a mother persuaded that giving up her child is for the best, a lingering bond that pulls and tugs yet will not break. Keeping Lucy follows a mother willing to give up everything to save the child she's been told she must forget. This story will have readers not only rooting for Ginny and Lucy, but thinking about them long after the last page is turned." -- Lisa Wingate

Never Tell; Lisa Gardner - (audio) in progress  Lisa Gardner returns with an unpredictable thriller that puts fan favorites D.D. Warren and Flora Dane on a shocking new case that begins with a vicious murder and gets darker from there.

City of Girls; Elizabeth Gilbert - a delicious novel of glamour, sex, and adventure, about a young woman discovering that you don't have to be a good girl to be a good person.

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted; Robert Hillman - A tender and wise novel about love, family, and forgiveness in 1960s Australia, in which a lonely farmer finds his world turned upside down by a vibrant woman determined to open the first bookstore his town has ever seen--and to leave her haunting memories of the Holocaust far behind.

Hope everyone had a great month!

Chances Are; Richard Russo

TITLE: Chances Are

AUTHOR:  Richard Russo

PUBLISHER: Random House Audio and Knopf

PUB. YEAR: 2019

SETTING: Martha's Vineyard - MA
FORMAT:  audio (11+ hours) and eGalley

RATING - 5/5

In this story, three old friends from Minerva College in Connecticut, now 66 years of age, return to Martha's Vineyard, the place they celebrated college graduation decades earlier.  The place holds both good and bad memories for the trio as the woman each of them had loved disappeared on that Memorial Day weekend, 1971, decades earlier. Just what happened to Jacey, the young woman each cared so much about?

Together again, the three aging friends: Lincoln, a commercial real estate broker, Teddy who owns a small publishing business and Mickey, a musician, try to piece together just what happened to Jacey.  As each man looks back at what had transpired from their college days to the present: the Vietnam war and the draft lottery and direction that their lives had taken as a result, bits and pieces of their lives as well as the Jacey mystery begins to come together.  

Once again, I found this story to be another trip down memory lane in many ways and all that happened in those 40 plus years. I loved the Martha's Vineyard setting and that this was a very character driven novel. Each character was well explored, very human and somewhat flawed. The mystery element surrounding Jacey's disappearance added a lot to an already great story.  

This one was a combo audio listen (very good narrator) and eGalley read.

Searching for Sylvie Lee; Jean Kwok

TITLE: Searching for Sylvie Lee

AUTHOR:  Jean Kwok

PUBLISHER: William Morrow

PUB. YEAR: 2019

SETTING: Queens, NY and Netherlands
FORMAT:  - eGalley

RATING - 3.5/5

Part mystery, part immigrant story, Searching for Sylvie Lee, introduces us to the Lee family, specifically the mother, a Chinese immigrant and daughters. Sylvie, the oldest by 7 years, is brilliant and has benefited from an elite education. Amy is 26 and still living at home with her parents in their tiny Queens apartment. Amy is shy and has been sheltered as the baby of the family but she adores her older sister Sylvie who was raised by another family until the age of 9, 

Amy receives a phone call from a distant cousin in the Netherlands to say the Sylvie has seemed to have vanished while visiting her grandmother who was dying of cancer. Amy and her parents are desperate for answers and Amy is determined to get to the bottom of it all.  As she begins her quest for answers by contacting individuals in Sylvie's life, she uncovers some surprising and at times troubling information about her sister and about the family as well.

I liked that this story was set in both Queens and the Netherlands but, must admit it was a very slow read at times. Fortunately, the story did pick up towards the end but, it is just not an upbeat or hopeful story and, I guess I hadn't realized that when I began..

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Speaking of Summer ; Kalisha Buckhanon

On Tuesdays, Vicki, ( I’d Rather Be At The Beach)  hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros where readers post the opening paragraph (or 2 ) of a book they are reading or that they plan to read.

 Speaking of Summer ; Kalisha Buckhanon

Counterpoint - 2019

PROLOGUE

"I was the nice-looking, well-dressed woman running down 151st Street in Harlem after school and before evening rush hour on a bright day at the end of August in 2015.

If you saw me with my purse half-open and my balance tested more than once, you were wrong to laugh and right to be alarmed."

What do you think, read more or pass?

Summer of 69; Elin Hilderbrand

TITLE: Summer of 69

AUTHOR:  Elin Hilderbrand

PUBLISHER: Little Brown & Co

PUB. YEAR: 2019

SETTING: Nantucket Island MA
FORMAT:  - print/library (439 pp)

RATING - 5/5

Summer of 69 was the perfect summer read for me: beautiful setting (Nantucket Island), family dynamics and complicated relationships.

It's 1969 and the Nichols, Foley and Levin clan looks forward, once again, to spending time on Nantucket Island at the Grandmother Nichols family home.  The Foley children: Blair who is pregnant with twins, Kirby, a college student and son Richard (Tiger) , the only boy, who is called to serve his country in Vietnam  and is now off to war as an Infantry soldier.   There is also 13 year old  Jessie Levin, a child from mother Kate's second marriage after her first husband's death.

There was so much I loved about this story, especially the drama within the family - it felt realistic and not over done.  Mother, Kate is a mess with her son off to war and booze is her coping mechanism.  There were lots of references to historic events that took place in 1969 besides the war, the moon landing, Woodstock and even the tragic event when Teddy Kennedy drove his car off the bridge in Chappaquiddick and the young woman he was with had drowned.  I think baby boomers will especially enjoy the trip down memory lane as I did. I also enjoyed the letters that young Jessie sent to her half-brother in Vietnam as it gave a nice picture of the mindset of both of these characters.

This is a book that belongs in your summer beach bag if you enjoy a well written family drama with characters you are bound to fall in love with as well.  I think you will be quickly pulled into the story as I was.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Chances Are; Richard Russo

On Tuesdays, Vicki, ( I’d Rather Be At The Beach)  hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros where  readers post the opening paragraph (or 2 ) of a book they are reading or that they plan to read.

This is my second book this month that takes place at least in part in 1969 - 50 years ago. The last book was, Summer of 69; Elin Hilderbrand - loved it but no review yet.

1969 - 50 years ago: Woodstock, Bobby Kennedy assassination, Vietnam war, Apollo moon landings, the last Beatles concert and so many more memorable events. I was in high school in then - definitely old enough to remember what a wild year it had been.  

Today's featured book is a story about 3 male friends (all 66 years old in the present). The story also flashes back to 1969 and something that happened back then....I'm about 50% through and it's really a good story by a talented author.

Chances Are; Richard Russo

Knopf-2019

Prologue

The three old friends arrived on the island in reverse order, from farthest to nearest: Lincoln, a commercial real estate broker, practically cross-country from Las Vegas; Teddy, a small-press publisher, from Syracuse; Mickey, a musician and sound engineer, from nearby Cape Cod. All were sixty-six years old and had attended the same liberal arts college in Connecticut where they'd slung hash at a campus sorority.  The other hashers, invariably frat boys, claimed to be there by choice, because so many of the Thetas were hot, whereas Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey were scholarship students doing the job out of varying degrees of economic necessity. Lincoln, as good-looking as any of the frat boys, was immediately made a face man,  which meant donning a scratchy white waist-length jacket serve the girls in the sorority's dining room.  Teddy, who worked at a restaurant during his junior and senior years of high school, became a cook's helper, making salads, stirring sauces, plating entrees and desserts. Mickey? They took one look and escorted him over to a sink where a mountain of dirty pots sat piled alongside a large cardboard box of off-brand steel scrubbers. Such was their freshman year.  By the time they were seniors, Lincoln has made head hasher and could offer both his friends positions in the dining room.  Teddy, who'd had enough of the kitchen, promptly accepted, but Mickey said he doubted there was a serving jacket big enough to fit him.  Anyway, he preferred remaining a kitchen slave to making nice with the fancy girls out front, since at least the galley was his own."

Does this seem like one you'd want to read?

If She Wakes; Michael Koryta

TITLE: If She Wakes

AUTHOR:  Michael Koryta

PUBLISHER: Little Brown & Co (400 pp)

PUB. YEAR: 2019

SETTING: Maine
FORMAT:  - ARC

RATING - 4/5

Tara Beckley is a senior at Hammel College in Maine. She's in charge of driving a visiting professor, Amandi Oltamu to deliver a keynote address at a conference but things don't go as planned.  The professor had been acting strangely and made a few unusual requests of Tara. One of those requests was that Tara stop the car and that they take a selfie of the two of them for social media. Tara complies and Professor O is struck and killed outside of the car. Tara is left in a vegetative state but, oddly, she can hear everything that is being said around her.

Abby Kaplan is an investigator hired by the university to look into this accident. It doesn't take long for her to see that things just don't add up and that this was no accident, it was most likely a "hit".  As Tara lies in her hospital bed,  hearing everything that is being said she learns that someone wants her dead as well - but why?

 This thriller had an odd set up to get the story moving but once it took off I felt like there was good character development and a fast moving plot. There was a young hitman and a few other interesting characters, as well as some unsuspecting twists that made this a thriller pretty decent read overall. I found myself quickly turning the pages to find out how it would all turn out.