It's Monday 4/24! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

You may have noticed I skipped last week's Monday post because ... we were on vacation! This was our first week-long trip since 2019 and our first camping trip of the year, and we had a wonderful time. We took our pop-up camper down to Virginia and stayed in two beautiful (and very different) state parks, with perfect weather.

Our first stop was Bear Creek Lake State Park, west of Richmond, in the foothills. We had a lovely site overlooking the water.

 

Hilly campground - we could see the lake through the trees

We enjoyed a short hike along the lakeshore and went kayaking out on the small lake. It was very windy the day we went kayaking, but we paddled along the edges of the lake (better for seeing wildlife) and spotted lots of turtles and a Great Blue Heron.

 

My husband kayaking Bear Creek Lake

Reflections in the water

A hike along the lakeshore

Great Blue Heron

Turtles lined up on the logs, warming in the sun

Mid-week, we moved to Belle Isle State Park on the eastern side of the state, along the Rappahannock River, just before it feeds into the Chesapeake Bay. This park is very flat and has huge campsites, surrounded by tall trees.

 

The view during my morning yoga

Our campsite at Belle Isle

We also kayaked there, along some of the inlets of Deep Creek. We were the only ones out on the water, and it was calm and peaceful. We'd been to this park before and seen osprey, but we didn't spot any this time (thought we did see a nest).

 

Wide open water on Deep Creek

Along with quiet inlets - perfectly calm water

We started and ended the trip with some great visits with family and friends, visiting my cousin who recently moved to Arlington, VA, for her first job and a college friend and her husband in Suffolk. Then, we enjoyed a nice drive home up the Virginia Eastern Shore, through Maryland, and back to Delaware.

 I love traveling over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel

A great lunch stop with fresh seafood, recommended by Road Food

I'll be posting a travel vlog on my YouTube channel tomorrow, with more photos and lots of video footage from the trip.

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On the Blog

I posted two reviews before we left home:

Middle-Grade Review: It's the End of the World and I'm in My Bathing Suit by Justin A. Reynolds - a funny novel about friendship

Middle-Grade Review: The Midnight Children by Dan Gemeinhart - another wonderfully warm and engaging story from this favorite author, all about friendship and found family  

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On Video

Just one book-related video before we left (see my YouTube channel for chronic illness-related videos, too):

Friday Reads 4-14-23 - quick overviews of two novels for Booktopia, a YA graphic memoir, and a YA audio book. 

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What We're Reading

My reading has been focused on Booktopia 2023, a wonderful book event held in Vermont the first weekend in May, which is now just a week and a half away! At Booktoipia, readers and authors hang out together and do all kinds of fun bookish stuff--tickets are still available! (Click Events and scroll down to the bottom.) Here's my summary from Booktopia 2022.

 

I read a very creepy psychological suspense novel, A Flaw in the Design by Nathan Oates, for Booktopia during the first half of our vacation. Gil is a literature professor at a small college in Vermont, where he lives with his wife and their two daughters, ages 11 and 15. As the novel opens, Gil is picking up his nephew, Matthew, at the airport. Seventeen-year-old Matthew is coming to live with them because his parents were just killed in a horrible car crash in New York City. They were very wealthy, so Matthew has lived a very different life than Gil's family. Right from the start, there are references to some awful, violent incident that happened between Matthew and one of the girls six years earlier. Gil and his wife think that Matthew may be a psychopath and are worried about him living in the midst of their family. The tension is there right from the start of the narrative and builds throughout the story. It was suspenseful and engrossing and kept me guessing.

 

Now, I am reading another Booktopia selection, Brother and Sister Enter the Forest by Richard Mirabella, an intimate novel about family relationships. Willa lives a quiet life on her own and works as a nurse. One day, her brother, Justin, appears on her doorstep, after being absent from her life for years. He's homeless and looks unhealthy, and Willa reluctantly lets him in to stay with her. The novel moves back and forth between the present and their childhoods, slowly filling in the blanks of what happened to both of them. The focus here is mainly on Justin and his coming-of-age story as a gay teen--he is clearly suffering from severe anxiety and perhaps additional mental illness--but the relationship between brother and sister is at the heart of the story.

My husband and I started listening to an audio book in the car, The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz. This is book four in his Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery series, where he himself is one of the main characters! Here, he has written a play, Mindgame, that is opening in London's West End (all of which really happened). When something goes horribly wrong and Anthony is accused of a violent crime, he calls on Hawthorne, a retired detective, to help solve the case and clear his name since the police are certain he is guilty. I listened to book one in the series, The Word Is Murder, last fall and enjoyed it. Our road trip wasn't quite long enough, so we'll have to find time to finish it at home now!

 

My husband, Ken, is still reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I love Dickens, and this one is my favorite, so he bought a copy recently when we visited an indie bookstore last month. I love to hear him laughing while reading it and reading passages out loud to me because this novel really shows off Dickens' wit. He's enjoying it and keeping me up on Pip's escapades.

 

Our son, 28, is still reading book 4, The Tunnels Beneath, of The Aldoran Chronicles by Michael Wiseheart. He really enjoys this author's novels. He said he hasn't had much reading time with his long days at work!

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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?