Ok ok!! I read a number of books this month that I really enjoyed! I hope you find something you like too!
I love Elin Hilderbrand, some of her books I enjoy more than others, but I also like the Nantucket descriptions and all of the food talk! “The Five-Star Weekend” wasn’t one of my favorite books of hers, but the end redeemed this one for me, and the overall idea of the book was really sweet. Hollis is a well known food blogger, with quite a following. When her husband tragically dies in a car accident, she decides to invite her best friends, each from a different phase of her life, to Nantucket to help her grieve and navigate his loss. There is a lot of drama between the friends, but also a story of friendship, love and loss. The main thing I didn’t really care for in this book was Brooke’s revelation and how it was portrayed, it just really took away from the book in my opinion and was far fetched as well. Overall though, decent beach read if you need one for a fall get away!
Katherine center is becoming one of my favorite authors. I loved “Hello Stranger,” it was one of my few five star reviews on Goodreads! Sadie is a struggling artist, who is so proud to place in the finals of an art competition. Suddenly, she has a condition requiring brain surgery, which leaves her seeing faces in a jumbled puzzle piece formation. I looked up this condition after reading this story and it is real, so it was just crazy to me that people have to live like this! She has weeks to paint the best portrait of her life, but of course she can’t see faces, and tries everything she can to work it out. So much of this story pertaining to family, love, loss and friendship…working through struggles and hardships. I loved the circle back parts of the story, the relationship connections you weren’t really expecting.
“The Little Italian Hotel” wasn’t one of my favorites this month, but it wasn’t awful either, just a little slow at times, but also a little bit of a strange premise to me. Ginny is a radio show host for a show about love and relationships, and has planned an anniversary getaway for her and husband…Only her husband has plans of his own, to ask for a divorce. Ginny ends up using the trip to take some of her radio show followers with her to Italy for a getaway, each one of them struggling with issues of their own. They all take off on an adventure of healing, making connections of friendship along the way, helping out a sweet Italian hotel owner in the process.
I love psychological thrillers, and felt like this one was pretty good. “Everyone is Lying” starts out with William’s somewhat long standing affair breaking off with him, which sends him home angry. He takes his anger out on his daughter, who he wasn’t expecting to be home. He then leaves again, and later that day, his daughter is declared missing. Obvious from the title, much lying ensues, because everyone always has something to hide. I was truly a little surprised as to how this one ended, the twists and turns at the end, the ending itself being a little on the creepy side!
Again, Katherine Center. I loved this book. “Happiness for Beginners” was so good. Helen’s husband has just left her, and being down about her situation, he younger brother convinces her to sign up for a survival wilderness course. She wasn’t expecting it to be as hard as it was, and also wasn’t expecting her brother’s best friend to also sign up for the course. I really enjoyed reading this story of braving the elements, people banding together and a romance growing through it all.
“The Radcliffe Ladies’ Reading Club” was a pretty good read too this month. Alice is in Massachusetts for college, and stumbles upon a small bookstore. She brings her friends by, and with the owner, they form a book club of sorts, one that stretches their views of women’s roles and life in general. A story of friendship, escaping societal norms, and going through trials together. As heart wrenching as this one was at times, I enjoyed reading it.
I have enjoyed this little Maple Falls book series, and “Two to Tango” was just as cheesy cute as the others have been. It’s Olivia’s turn for love, and to her surprise, her heart falls for Kingston, and is broken over and over again. Their relationship is definitely a tango, which grows in actual ballroom dancing classes hehe! It was a cute story, an easy read and very clean.
I loved “The Words We Lost” as well this month. Ingrid is a book editor in San Fransisco, but after the death of her best friend Cecelia, she has lost the ability to comprehend what she is reading and is struggling to do her job. Her long lost love, Joel, shows up with an envelope from her Cecelia, offering her a chance for closure, and to possibly locate the lost manuscript that she was working on when she passed. There is a lot of revisiting the past and rediscovering relationships and what Ingrid really wants from life. It was overall a great story to read.
Well, there’s September for you! Hope you enjoyed seeing what I read this month, and happy book selecting to you! 🙂
If you’re interested in seeing what I read the last few months, you can click on the links below or click on my Books tab above! If you want to follow along with me on Goodreads, check out my profile! I keep track of the books I’m reading, what I’ve read and the reviews on books I’ve made there!