It's Monday 10/17! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

This week's update is better titled, "Living Our Best Life"! We spent the past five days at one of the most beautiful places we've ever stayed, in a rental house right on Lake Harmony in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. Miraculously, after weeks of cold and rain, the weather was perfect, the foliage was at peak color up there, and the rental house was amazing with stunning views from wrap-around windows. Best of all, our sons and their girlfriends joined us for the weekend, our first family (mini) vacation since November 2019! It was wonderfully relaxing, breath-takingly beautiful, and so great to just spend time together. Some highlights:

 

View from "our" living room

Sons & girlfriends in kayak and pedal-boat

Husband and I kayaking

The Jackson Four

Ahhh, bliss! Reading on the dock on a perfect fall day.

All six of us on the deck

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On the Blog

Nothing last week! No time. I brought my laptop to the lake and never opened it :) Will have to catch up on reviews this week!

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On YouTube

 

My September Reading Wrap-Up - a bit about each of the books and audios I read last month.

 

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What We're Reading

 

 

I finished reading a detective novel with a twist: The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters, book one in a trilogy. Like many of my darker fall reading choices, I bought this one (and the second book) for my husband, and he's loving this series. Hank Palace was recently promoted to detective with the Concord, New Hampshire, police department. But the world is ending in six months, so life--and the job--has been pretty strange. A giant asteroid is headed toward Earth, and there's nothing that scientists can do about it. But Hank is committed to this job that he's wanted all his life. When yet another apparent suicide shows up one morning, the rest of the team just wants to move on, but Hank has a gut feeling that foul play may have been involved; a few details at the crime scene just don't add up in his mind, so he keeps digging. This trilogy has a very a unique premise, and this first book was well-written and gripping.

 

 

For our lake weekend, I wanted a book with a nature theme, and one from my stack for the R.I.P. Challenge perfectly fit the bill: High Country by Nevada Barr. Barr writes a series of mystery/thrillers featuring Park Ranger Anna Pigeon; each book is set in a different national park. In this one, Anna's been asked to travel to Yosemite NP and go undercover as a waitress, to sub in for a young woman who's recently gone missing, along with three other young park workers. As Anna quietly investigates, some very strange things come to light and happen to her. The tension grows as she begins to realize what's behind the disappearances. Like all of Barr's novels, this one is suspenseful, immersive, and set in a beautiful place. Anna is in a dangerous position right now, so I can't wait to read more tonight!

 

 

On audio, I started listening to a thriller I've been meaning to read for years, The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut. The author used to work as an editor at FamilyFun magazine, and I did freelance work for them for many years, so when I saw she'd published a book, I was interested! It took me a few years to get to it, though. It's about a young woman named Miranda who's serving a long sentence for murder in a women's prison. She's assigned to prison psychologist Frank Lundquist, who immediately recognizes Miranda as his high school crush. Of course, this is a conflict of interest, but he doesn't say anything, and she doesn't seem to recognize him (she was a popular girl and he had few friends), so they begin therapy. As their sessions continue in the present day, we gradually learn more about their pasts. I'm enjoying it so far!

 

 

My husband has just started reading Into the Water by Paula Hawkins, a novel I found for him in one of our local Little Free Libraries (my LFL tour at the link). We both read and enjoyed Hawkins' The Girl on the Train. This one is about two women who show up dead in a river that runs through town. So far, he says it's is a bit confusing, with both narrators and timelines shifting back and forth.

 

 

Our son, 28, is still making his way through the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, which he's loving! He finished book nine, Chainfire, and this weekend, he was reading book ten, Phantom.

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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?