What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I was looking for a book that wasn’t historical fiction.  I’ve said before that it’s my favorite genre but it is also taxing to read as it’s often very emotional.  So what did I pick instead?  Riding the Lightning:  A Year in the Life of a New York City Paramedic by Anthony Almojera. I am […]

I was on my Audible account and realized I haven’t been through the free section of books for a bit.  I browsed and ended up finding this book, The Survival of Margaret Thomas by Del Howison.  It was listed as a western but I love pioneer-type stories and after reading the description I thought I […]

I have told you that with one of my online libraries, I have to put books on a wait list and then I wait and wait.  I got my latest book, The Letter from Briarton Park by Sarah E Ladd, from that library. For these books, I have a shorter loan period.  I was getting […]

I have long been a Charles Martin book lover.  I remember the exact moment I first heard about him.  We had lived in Lawler, Iowa for several years and I got to know the librarian, Jane.   She was the perfect librarian and our whole family loved her. We ended up moving to the neighboring town […]

Kristin Harmel is one of my favorite authors.  From the first book I read, The Book of Lost Names, I’ve fallen in love with her books.  I put all of the books by her that I could find on my waitlist.  The Room on Rue Amelie just came available and I grabbed it up and […]

I saw the book Run, Rose, Run listed when I was scrolling through the online library.  I think it was the cover that first caught my eye and then it was the author.  James Patterson and Dolly Parton??  That seemed like an unusual combination to me.  I had to check it out.  I put myself on the waitlist and it finally became available.

This book was kind of fun to listen to in the audio version.  Dolly Parton is one of the readers as well as a whole ensemble of others.  It is almost more like a play.  That was ...

I have been a Hoopla kick as of late. Hoopla is on of my free online libraries.   I love Hoopla for books as I can download them immediately and don’t have to wait on a waitlist for books.  My latest book was A Death at Tippitt Pond by Susan Van Kirk.

I ended up liking the book.  It was a story of a girl that was adopted, didn’t know she was adopted, and later finds out she has inherited money from her biological family when her last living family member dies.

The story includes a mystery as to ...

I’m off at the cross stitch retreat.  I didn’t want to leave you high and dry with no blog posts…yet I wanted to enjoy the retreat and not be taxed with writing posts.  So I added an extra book review in…

If you’ve been following along with me all of these years, you know that I like the Kate Burkholder series by Linda Castillo.  I like them so much that I always preorder the books and burn up an Audible credit for them.  I used to try to wait with the online library but it takes ...

I know the old saying don’t judge a book by its cover.  I also know that it isn’t meant specifically for books…but, I judged this book, When We Were Young and Brave by Hazel Gaynor, by its cover.

It looked like historical fiction. With the planes, I guessed it might be WWII-related.  It was. I guessed it was likely in a foreign country…it was.

I ended up liking the book a lot.  I learned about a different aspect of WWII that I previously had never thought of.  The story takes place in China.  Missionary families were ...

I was so happy when I saw that author Ronald H. Balson had a new book out.  This author has a great book series out.  The stories follow Liam Taggart and Catherine Lockhart a private detective and attorney who seem to specialize in crimes that happened during the WWII time period.  They live in the present day but are often needed to solve cases from long ago.

The book I am reviewing today is book #6 of the series called Defending Britta Stein.

It’s often hard to read books in a series that I love.  I’m often worried ...

This book was on my waiting list.  I seem to fluctuate between historical fiction and books that involve crimes.  This one, 29 Seconds, by T. M. Morgan is definitely in the crime genre.

Remember how I’ve said I need to be able to relate to a character to truly love a book.  Well, I had trouble relating to the main character.  You’ll read much of this in the overview of the book so I don’t think I’m giving too much away.  So Sarah is given the option to eliminate one person from her life.  She chooses ...

I just finished up the book Under the Flaming Sky by Daniel James Brown.

I picked this book completely and totally because of the book cover.  I know they say don’t read a book by its cover, but I did.  Do you see the words under the title?  It says “The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894”.

Well, I have relatives in a town called Hinckley Minnesota.  Growing up, my grandma lived there…well actually out in the country but Hinckley was her address.  I have cousins as well as two uncles and an aunt that still live there.  I ...

I typically only do one book review each week but this one was so good, I want to share it immediately.  Here goes:

A blog reader contacted me and said she had just read The Light in Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron and she thought that I would love it.  Hmm.  I love suggestions but sometimes, I get books that I don’t love as suggestions.  They might end up being a romance book and I don’t love that.

So, I ended up going on Hoopla.  It’s an online library and I get the books without being on ...

I had a blog reader recommend the author Donna Everhart.  I checked out Hoopla, my online library, and they had several of her books.  I picked The Education of Dixie Dupree for book club and I ended up checking out the book, The Forgiving Kind.

As a quick reminder, we are taking the month of July to read The Education of Dixie Dupree for book club.  We’ll talk about it on August 1st. 
But back to the Forgiving Kind…
I LOVED this book.  I’ve told you before that my favorite books are hardscrabble coming of age books.  This ...

A blog reader suggested the author Catherine Ryan Hyde to me.  I thought I had read books by her before so went on the hunt to see if any were available that I hadn’t read.  I found Chasing Windmills.

I really liked this book and am so happy that the blog reader reminded me of this author.

The book is good…almost a bit more Young Adult book.  Or at least I would classify it there.  Don’t let that distract you from reading it though.

The book is told from two perspectives, the boy’s and the girl ...

Our daughter Kayla recommended a book to me the other day.  It was The Girl from the Channel Islands by Jenny LeCoat.

I love when Kayla recommends a book as it is typically available from Hoopla as we both have Hoopla, which is a free online library.  I highly recommend it.  In fact, it’s my favorite online library as the book are available immediately and there is no waiting for the book.

I downloaded it and was listening in just a few minutes.

The book is based on a true story…I love that.  I think we all forget ...

One of my favorite books dealing with WWII is the book Sarah’s Key by Tatiana DeRosnay.  When I saw this book, The Other Story, by the same author, I was thrilled.

The thrill didn’t last long.  The book is terrible…well, at least nothing I wanted to read.  The story is about a one-hit-wonder author who let fame go his head.  The book is filled with inappropriate sexual scenes.  I’ll be honest, I tried and tried and tried to finish the book until I finally admitted the book was awful.  I was sure I was imagining it ...

Before I get to today’s book review I thought I would pop a quick reminder here that book club meets here on June 1st.  As a reminder, this is our book…
The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain.

Here is a quick synopsis…
“1965
Growing up in the well-to-do town of Round Hill, North Carolina, Ellie Hockley was raised to be a certain type of proper Southern lady. Enrolled in college and all but engaged to a bank manager, Ellie isn’t as committed to her expected future as her family believes. She’s chosen to spend ...

I had a host of books on my waitlist…well actually 10.  The online library only lets me have 10 books on my waitlist.  I try to keep the list constantly full as many of the books are on there for four months or even more.  Once the books become available, I download and listen to them ASAP as I know there are others waiting for them and…I want to get them off my list.  This time around three books on the list all became available within a 3 day period.  I decided to quickly listen to the first ...

I’ve listened to so many books lately that I’m squeezing in a bonus book this week…

In the last 6 months or so I discovered author Kristin Harmel-she is the same author of our last book club selection.  I read two of her book and then went to my online libraries and looked for more books by her.  I ended up finding The Forest of Vanishing Stars and immediately put myself on the waitlist.  A few weeks later it became available and I checked it out.

This book was okay but not quite as good as the other ...