It's Monday 10/9! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

Last week was busy but fun!  It was a big birthday week in my family, with four in a row. We celebrated my husband's birthday Wednesday evening with good friends who came over for takeout Mexican and cake. All four of us were pretty tired that night from busy days, but as our friend said when she was leaving, "It's so nice to have friends we can get together with even when we're not feeling up to being social!" We've known them since we all lived in New Orleans together in the 80's. I forgot to take photos Wednesday (like I said, we were all tired!), so here's two photos of us from the old days - my husband and I with her on a camping trip and all four of us on Halloween in 1987:

On Friday, we left for a weekend of camping with my cousin and his wife, something we've been trying to coordinate for years! He and I are the same age, and we were quite a bit older than the rest of our cousins (and he was the only boy among eight girl cousins). They have their camper set up on a permanent site at a campground in eastern Pennsylvania, less than two hours from our house. We met them there and had a wonderful weekend together. They have a nice group of friends there that we enjoyed meeting. It rained for about 12 hours Saturday, but they had a nice dry covered patio with a gas fireplace. And once the rain ended in the afternoon, we were left with a gorgeous fall day! My cousin, my husband, and I went kayaking on a nearby lake and really enjoyed the beautiful afternoon, with some touches of fall color starting to show in the trees.

Cousins!

Great Blue Heron

My husband and cousin kayaking

Some fall color starting!

Beautiful sky after the storm

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On the Blog

 TV Tuesday: And Just Like That ... - I never watched Sex and the City, but I enjoyed this entertaining reboot about women friends in their 50's.

Teen/YA Reviews: Crash and Bang (Visions trilogy) by Lisa McMann - I loved these paranormal thrillers by one of my favorite YA authors and I can't wait to read book 3!

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On Video

Friday Reads 10-6-23 - my brief weekly update on what I am currently reading, in print and on audio 

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 What We're Reading

 

 

I finished reading Upgrade by Blake Crouch. My husband and I are big fans of Crouch's sci fi thrillers (Recursion was excellent and Dark Matter is my favorite), as well as his TV shows, Wayward Pines and Good Behavior (and, oh my gosh, I just found out they're making Dark Matter into a TV series!!). Upgrade takes place in a near future where genetic manipulation is illegal due to a devastating famine that resulted from earlier experiments. Logan is an ex-genetic scientist who now works for the GPA, Genetic Protection Agency. During one raid of a lab, he's badly injured and exposed to something the doctors can't pinpoint. But, soon, he begins to feel different: growing smarter, faster, stronger every day. Is Logan's "upgrade," which is planned to expand to all people, truly the evolution that will save humanity? Or is it a terrible mistake that needs to be stopped? As always, Crouch starts his novel with a bang and an intriguing premise, and the suspense and action never let up.

 

 

 

And now I have started another book from my large pile of possibilities for the R.I.P. Challenge, The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfeld. This is a sequel to her earlier novel, The Child Finder, which my husband and I both enjoyed. Naomi is an investigator who specializes in finding missing children. She herself was abducted as a child, but her memories begin with her escape from her captor. Naomi's younger sister is still missing, after all these years, and Naomi has promised herself that the next person she finds will be her sister. She heads to Portland, Oregon, where young girls have been going missing in recent months, with six of them turning up dead in the river. Despite her determination to focus only on her sister, Naomi becomes interested in a 12-year-old girl named Celia who is living on the streets to escape an abusive stepfather and addicted mother. It's excellent so far, with the same suspense, attention to detail, and in-depth characters as the earlier novel.

 

I started a new audio book for the R.I.P. Challenge, When Ghosts Come Home by Wiley Cash. It's a mystery set in coastal North Carolina. Sheriff Winston Barnes is awakened one night by a loud noise and goes out to investigate. On the small airfield near his house, he finds a private plane crashed on the runway, and a man who's been killed by a gun lying nearby. The man is a local, Rodney, who's always been a law-abiding citizen. Other perspectives are woven into the narrative, including Winston's daughter, Colleen, who is severely depressed after losing her baby, and Jay, Rodney's wife's younger brother, who's been sent to stay with them after getting in trouble at home in Atlanta. I'm interested to see how these different threads will come together and where the investigation goes. This is my first Wiley Cash novel, and so far, the writing is just as good as I'd heard.

 

My husband, Ken, got a big stack of books for his birthday (of course), but he had already started reading Kidnapped, a classic by Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island was a favorite at our house when our kids were young. He says that so far, the writing reminds a bit of Great Expectations (which he read earlier this year on my recommendation), though darker. 

 

Our son, 29 finished reading The Wizard's Crown, book 5 in the Art of the Adept series by Michael Manning. He's now moved onto the first book in a new sequel series to that one, Wrath of the Stormking, and is reading book one, Wizard in Exile.

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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?