It's Monday 10/24! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

 Life

Most of last week was unpacking and catching up after our lovely long weekend at Lake Harmony. We had a nice treat on Saturday night. With my health being so poor and unpredictable lately, I haven't seen friends in ages. Luckily, we've got great friends who responded to my last-minute invitation to come over Saturday night for Thai takeout and a campfire! We hadn't seen them in months, so we enjoyed the delicious food, the perfect fall evening, and had a great time catching up with them. And it made up for missing our camping trip, too!

Cozy campfire on a beautiful fall night!

Briefly, I've seen some small improvements in my health this weekend, as this months-long relapse continues. My energy is definitely better, though the flu-like aches persist (and they are a warning sign that if I do anything, I'll get a lot worse). I had a long talk with my doctor last week about the (necessary) medication change in August that probably triggered this relapse initially. We decided on a new medication to try, to attempt to stabilize my hormone levels, and so far, I think it's helping! Yesterday was my first day without a headache in weeks. Fingers crossed the improvement continues.

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On the Blog

I was able to catch up on some reviews last week: 

Middle-Grade Graphic Novel Review: Booked by Kwame Alexander - an impulse grab at the library turned out to be an outstanding book!

   Fiction Review: The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz - an excellent, unpredictable mystery ... with a twist

Fiction Review: The Guide by Peter Heller - I loved this outdoor thriller with great nature writing 

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On Video

One new book video posted to my YouTube channel:

Friday Reads & Lake Vacation - my usual weekly update on books, plus videos and photos from our weekend on the lake   

 

Plus, my local bookstore interviewed me last week! They posted the video to their Facebook page:

Hockessin Book Shelf Interview with Suzan Jackson 

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What We're Reading

We're still immersed in the R.I.P. Challenge for fall and enjoying our books:  

 

I finished reading 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, with several high-tension climactic scenes! Like all of Barr's novels, this one was suspenseful, immersive, and set in a beautiful (though here, quite dark) place. It was gripping from beginning to end, and now I remember why I love Nevada Barr's writing! 

Now, I am reading another dark suspense novel, with a supernatural twist: A Furnace for Your Foe by Matty Dalrymple. This is book four in her Ann Kinnear series about a woman who can sense and communicate with spirits and often helps solve mysteries by talking to the dead. Here, Ann has traveled back to Mount Desert Island in Maine (one of my favorite places) to record a documentary about her abilities, along with a revered colleague, Garrick Masser. A man named Leo just died while hiking a trail he knew well, falling to his death from a steep spot. Soon, Shelby, his hiking partner and a colleague at his company, goes missing. Ann begins talking with Leo, as the documentary proceeds and the mysteries build. I love this series and am fully immersed in this novel!

 

On audio, I am still listening to a psychological suspense novel, The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut. A young woman named Miranda is 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 learn more about their pasts. The tension gradually builds in this novel. I'm almost to the end and just now finally finding out why Miranda went to prison. It's been twisty and compelling.

 

My husband, Ken, is still 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 newer novel is about two women who show up dead in a river that runs through town. There are multiple narrators and timelines shifting back and forth, but now that he's well into it, he says he knows who everyone is! It seems to be engrossing.

 

Our son, 28, just finished Phantom, book nine in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, and now he's moving onto book ten, Confessor. This is the last one of a bunch that he bought at a used bookstore last time he visited home, so he'll have to move onto a different series next!

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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?