It's Monday 9/17! What Are You Reading?

You won't believe this, but our vacation plans got thwarted once again last week (that's 3 times in the past month, if you are keeping score!). We spent all day Tuesday packing up, getting the camper ready, putting the kayaks on the truck. By evening, we were ready for an early morning start the next day...and my husband noticed that transmission fluid was leaking out of the truck....a lot of it! He figured out what part was leaking, and we made calls to all the Honda dealers in the area and a bunch of independent garages, but no one could get the part in until Thursday (this is an ongoing problem with our older cars!). So, we once again cancelled our camping reservations, with no way to tow our camper. Out of options for the outdoor vacation we'd planned, we booked a tiny Airbnb apartment in Great Barrington, MA (near the park where we wanted to camp and one of the towns we'd planned to visit), and once again cut the trip down by another day (lodging is a lot more expensive than camping!).

Finally - FINALLY - we left town on Thursday!! It was a mini vacation instead of the week-long camping trip we'd planned, but it turned out very well. Great Barrington is a wonderful town in the Berkshires (with 2 bookstores!), and our little apartment was right on Main Street, so we could walk to restaurants and other places. We went on 3 beautiful hikes - it is such a gorgeous area, filled with forests, rivers, lakes, mountains, and waterfalls - so we got some outdoor time. More details coming this week on the blog - photos, restaurant reviews, and bookstore reviews. Overall, it was a relaxing little getaway - and man, did we need it!

Back home now, with two cars to pick up from repair shops (though Volkswagen just called to say they found another problem with mine and it's not quite ready yet - it's been there for 8 weeks now!) and two borrowed cars to return, and another tropical storm on the way. Oh, well, at least we had 3 days of beautiful weather and relaxation.

Here's what we've been reading the past week:

• I finished my next review book, The Rain Watcher by Tatiana De Rosnay (due out in October), author of Sarah's Key. It's about a family that comes together in Paris for a birthday/anniversary celebration in the midst of a natural disaster, with heavy rain causing historic flooding of the Seine and inundating the city while they deal with their own family crises. It's an immersive family drama set against a dramatic backdrop, though not a great choice for me last week, stuck at home because of the storm!
• Now, I am back to my dark and creepy reading for the R.I.P. Challenge, reading Still Life by Louise Penny for one of my book groups. It's the first novel in her Inspector Gamache mystery series. I've heard great things about Penny's novels for years, so I am glad for the chance to finally try one. It's a classic mystery/police procedural set in a small town in Quebec, and I'm enjoying it so far.
• I finished listening to Dark Saturday by Nicci French, another good choice for the R.I.P. Challenge. When I chose this one for review, I didn't realize it was part of a series (the Frieda Klein series), but there were some hints throughout to catch me up. The titular British psychologist is asked to look into an old murder case, where a girl (now a woman) was convicted of killing her parents and has been in a mental institute ever since. It was dark and gripping, though I do think I missed some bits of the ongoing story and character details by coming into the series in the middle, but it was a good thriller with an unexpected ending.
• On our road trip, my husband and I started listening to Not If I Save You First by Ally Carter, a YA thriller. We went with a YA novel because it was a short trip (even so, we haven't quite finished it yet), though my husband has little patience for the teen romance angle! Luckily, it is mostly a suspenseful survival thriller set in Alaska, with the President's son getting kidnapped while visiting an old friend. We have a few chapters left - maybe we'll listen while doing all those car pick-ups and drop-offs!
• My husband, Ken, is reading a book I gave him for Father's Day, The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen, which the cover says is the "First Department Q Novel." Ken says it's about the dark underbelly of Denmark.
• Our son, Jamie, 23, is reading book 12 of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, The Gathering Storm, which is the first one that was co-authored by Brandon Sanderson. He was sick all last week, so he may have finished it by now!

Last week's one blog post:

Movie Monday: Jurassic World (2015) -  We all enjoyed it!

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.   

What are you and your family reading this week?