New E-Mail List Provider

No, this isn't a duplicate post from two weeks ago! The first new mail provider I tried using, Mailchimp, didn't work for me because they couldn't e-mail the list every time I had a new blog post up. After much research, work, and many chats with the Help line (I am really just no good at the technical stuff), I am now signed up with follow.it, a fairly new e-mail list service. 

This one is made specifically for sending blog updates, so it should work pretty smoothly. They don't currently have the ability for me to send extra e-mails, but let's be honest - I don't have time for that now anyway! What follow-it does offer, however, is an extra perk for YOU, the readers. Follow.it is a feed-reading service (something like Reddit, I think), so in addition to following my blog, you can choose other feeds you want to follow as well, including all kinds of news, sports, entertainment, and loads of book-related feeds. You don't have to sign up for anything else, but the service is there for you to use (for free) if you want to.

So, once again, you may see a duplicate post as I transition; I will turn off the old feed as soon as I send this post. After this post, you should receive updates only from the new follow.it feed.

The e-mails may look a little different, but the service will be almost the same as before: you'll receive each blog post via e-mail, probably the day after I post it.

NOTE: If you were on the list before and stop receiving e-mails OR if you'd like to sign up for the blog post e-mails, just use the quick form at the top of the sidebar on my blog.

See you in your Inbox!

It's Monday 6/14! What Are You Reading?

Whew, we had a rather frantic, unexpected sort of weekend, though everything turned out fine.

First, we enjoyed a lovely gathering with four of our oldest friends Saturday evening. We all lived in New Orleans at the same time (and worked for the same company) in the 80's and have remained good friends for decades. One couple is now moving to Nashville, so we got some takeout from our favorite local New Orleans restaurant and gathered in a friend's porch to catch up, reminisce, and say goodbye. It was a wonderful evening of good food, good conversation, and good friends.

We walked back in the door at home afterward, and my phone rang. It was a nurse from my 96-year-old father-in-law's apartment (he lives in Independent Living but had used his call button to call a nurse from the neighboring nursing care home), telling us she'd called him an ambulance for chest pains. As we suspected, it turned out to be indigestion, though the pain woke him from a deep sleep and scared him. As with most hospital ER trips, it took all night for them to run all the tests, check with all the specialists, and finally release him. He's fine, just a false alarm, but he and my husband were up all night in the ER; my husband got home at 6 am!

So, we decided to cancel our camping trip planned for Sunday through Tuesday. This wasn't as big a disappointment as you might think because we'd been wondering if we should cancel anyway because of the cicadas. The 17-year cicadas have emerged here, and they are making a huge racket! There aren't too many near our house, but there are in some local parks to the south, including the one where we had a reservation. We tried a 1-hour picnic at one of those parks last weekend, and the noise was deafening. You might think we're being picky and squeamish, but a friend who has them all around their house said they measured the noise at about 85 decibels!! When I called the park to cancel, the ranger told me the cicada noise there was "apocalyptic"! So, maybe it was all for the best.

Since we were supposed to be away today, we took a vacation day: had breakfast out at one of our favorite places and went on a nice hike on a new-to-us trail along a gorgeous stream. Then, my husband went golfing, and I came home for my usual nap (and now, my Monday blog post!). So, we enjoyed a nice day outdoors.

A perfect summer day (though not too hot) along a lovely stream

Meanwhile, Big Book Summer is rolling right along! Lots of people have signed up to participate and are having fun picking their Big Book(s) and sharing what they're reading on social media and in the Goodreads' group. It's a fun time of year!

On my latest Friday Reads video, I talk about the challenge and what I've been reading.

Here's what we've all been reading here this week, Big Books and more!

I finished my last book group pick before a summer hiatus, The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson. The author is the famous advice columnist, Ask Amy, but this is a very personal memoir. It's about her family and her hometown, and her experiences going back there as a single mother after a devastating divorce. As she explains in the beginning of the memoir, hers is a family of mostly women (dubbed by her daughter as The Mighty Queens of Freeville), and many of them are/were divorced single mothers. It was excellent: moving and immersive. She's very honest about how damaged she felt after the unexpected divorce and her struggle to get back on her feet and figure out what to do with her life. I also enjoyed that her hometown is in Upstate NY, not too far from where I grew up (though I grew up in a suburb of Rochester vs. her rural town). I enjoyed her honest and funny memoir very much, as did the rest of my book group.

After that, it was back to the Big Books! I'm now reading The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray. I haven't gotten very far yet with all of this weekend's excitement, but it's got a time travel plot, which is my favorite kind of novel! I heard about this through a podcast called The Readers (I don't think it's still on), which was hosted by Simon and Gavin way back when. Gavin also loved time travel novels and recommended this as one of his all-time favorite books. So, I kept it on my TBR list all these years and added it to my Books I would Like as Gifts list for my family! My husband gave it to me for Christmas, and I saved it for Big Book Summer. All I can tell you so far is that a man named Waldemar Tolliver is "stuck outside of time" at the start of the book. As he narrates his present predicament, he goes back to tell his unusual family history, beginning with a strange discovery about time that his great-great grandfather made in 1903, and how his namesake, his great-uncle, further investigated it. It's interesting so far, and I hope to have more reading time this week!

On audio, I am listening to another Big Book! (Yes, audios count for the challenge, too, based on the page count in the print book.) I am listening to The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna by Juliet Grames, a novel published in 2019. I've heard lots of rave reviews of this book, so I've been looking forward to listening to it (perfect for Big Book Summer). It's the story of a woman named Stella, who encounters many life-threatening incidents during her childhood in rural Italy and youth in the United States. She protects her younger sister, Tina, but life changes dramatically when the family immigrates to America just before WWII. The story is told from the perspective of a family member in Connecticut in the present day, to explain why the two now-elderly sisters don't get along. It's an engaging and unique family epic, and I'm enjoying it so far. The historical detail and settings are beautifully rendered.

My husband, Ken, is reading his first Big Book Summer pick (yes, he joins the challenge, too!), For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Like me, he likes to read classics once in a while, and this one has been on our shelves for a bit. It's about the Spanish Civil War and is based on Hemingway's own travels to Spain as a journalist in 1937 to cover the war for the North American Newspaper Alliance. I think this is the third Hemingway novel my husband has read, but I have never read anything by Hemingway! I know, isn't that crazy? I never even read any Hemingway in school. Ken was struggling with this one at first. He said the language was very different from other Hemingway novels, and it was hard to understand. He seems to be getting into the story now, and while it was slow-going at first, he said he read 80 pages in the ER Saturday night!

I believe our 26-year-old son is still immersed in one of his favorite series, Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. He's reading book 4, Rhythm of War, which is a mere 1232 pages ... and hardcover! He loves epic fantasy, the longer the better--it's always Big Book Summer for him! He laughs about my annual challenge and says he rarely reads anything less than 400 pages. He'll be coming to visit this week, for Father's Day, so we're looking forward to seeing him.

 

 

Blog posts last week:

Fiction Review: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides - a twisty psychological thriller

Fiction Review: Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver - another beautiful, heartwarming, thoughtful, and engaging story set in the American Southwest from my favorite author.

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?

Fiction Review: Animal Dreams

Last month, I listened to Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver, which was like comfort food for my soul. She is one of my favorite authors, and her novels, The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees (along with its sequel, Pigs in Heaven), are among my all-time favorite books. Like those, this is an earlier novel (published in 1990), and she reads the audio herself. Also like those other novels, Animal Dreams was heartwarming, thoughtful, and engaging.

 

Codi has returned to her tiny hometown in Arizona for the first time since she left after high school, decades ago. She hasn’t been in close touch with her father, the town doctor, but she's heard he's suffering from dementia. Her beloved sister, Haley, is in Nicaragua (the novel is set in the 80's), helping the farmers there, so Codi is on her own. With Haley away and a relationship recently ended, Codi is at loose ends. She’s staying at the home of her best friend, who has a family, and is seeing people again that last saw her in high school. And she’s working for a year as the science teacher at her old high school. As with most of Kingsolver's novels, there is an environmental crisis here (though it’s not the main story), along with Native American cultures and legends. Codi is struggling to figure out who she is and what she wants to do with her life ... and maybe falling in love with her high school boyfriend.

 

I absolutely loved listening to this book on audio; it was the perfect accompaniment to time spent weeding and digging in the garden. Kingsolver has the most wonderful, soothing voice and completely inhabits the characters she is narrating (listen to the audio sample below to see what I mean). As with all Kingsolver novels, her characters were fully developed; I was really rooting for Codi to figure things out and find her place in the world. There is also a gentle sense of humor throughout the book: I loved hearing about the “stitch and bitch club,” the group of older women in town who get together to sew. There are multiple interesting plotlines, though it never felt confusing or overcrowded. She is a master storyteller. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Kingsolver narrate this beautifully written, gentle, lyrical story. 

 

384 pages, Harper Perennial

HarperAudio

 

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, to hear Kingsolver's lovely, soothing voice as first Doc and then Codi narrate from the beginning of the book, and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!
  

Or you can order Animal Dreams from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: The Silent Patient

My neighborhood book group chose a thriller for our June selection, which is an unusual choice for us. We read The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, a psychological thriller.

 

Right in the very first sentence of chapter one, it says that Alicia murdered her husband. So, this is not a whodunit but a “why did she do it?” After the crime occurred, Alicia completely stops speaking, so no one knows why she did it. She is a famous painter, and her husband was a well-known fashion photographer. They seemed to have a wonderful, loving marriage, so what happened? Alicia's silence continues for many years, as she remains at the Grove, a secure forensic psychiatric facility in London. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who, by his own admission, has his own issues stemming from an abusive childhood. Theo becomes obsessed with Alicia and manages to get himself hired at the Grove and assigned to her case. Everyone else has given up, since she won't communicate at all, but Theo thinks he can connect with her. He even begins his own investigation of her life leading up to the murder, after hours, telling himself it will help him to understand her better, and he begins to feel a bond with her because of her similarly awful childhood.

 

This is a classic psychological thriller, with plenty of suspense and lots of twists and surprises! Chapters alternate between Theo’s narration in the present day, as he tries to break through Alicia’s silence, and Alicia’s own diary entries, leading up to the day of the murder. As the pieces slowly fall into place, I was constantly changing theories on what happened and why she did it, like with any good, twisty thriller. Not everyone in my book group enjoys psychological thrillers, so some were less satisfied with the book than others, but those of us who enjoy this sort of book found it an immersive and compelling one.

 

323 pages, Celadon Books

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, with two different narrators for Alicia and Theo, and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

  

 

Or you can order The Silent Patient from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

It's Monday 6/7! What Are You Reading?

Happy Monday! It was a busy week here, with a lot of frustration due to my trying to switch to a new e-mail list provider. I ran into some unexpected limits that I didn't expect and can already see that the new service I signed up with (Mailchimp) probably won't work for me. In fact, it's looking unlikely that I can use any free service, and I really have no budget since this blog doesn't earn an income--it's a labor of love! So, I am stuck for now and very frustrated. My issue is that Mailchimp (and most providers) limit you to only about 8 e-mails per month for the number of subscribers I have, even for their paid service! With the old system (Feedburner, which is going away), I sent an e-mail anytime there was a new blog post, but I usually have 3-5 blog posts per week, so after one week, I'm almost up to my monthly limit already! I sent a poll out to the entire e-mail list to ask if people prefer the old system, with one e-mail per blog post, or a weekly (very long) e-mail with all of the week's posts in it.

Meanwhile, a Question for Other Bloggers: 

What e-mail list service will allow me to send 3-5 e-mails per week to a list of roughly 1250 subscribers, without breaking the bank?

Whew, sorry for all that, but it was a very frustrating week, and I am really stuck on how to solve this issue. Any input would be appreciated! Not to sound like an old fogey, but why can't things just stay the same??

So, we spent a lot of time outdoors working this weekend, planting the last of our native plants that I purchased a month ago (it was SO horribly hot for digging holes!!). 

Some of our new baby plants, among the older azaleas & irises

We spent Sunday scrubbing down our porch and all the furniture to prepare for the season--it was covered with a thick coating of that yellow-green pine pollen that inundates us every May. Everything is still drying now, but it will be nice to have a clean porch again when we put it all back together. It was 95 and humid here yesterday, so soaking everything with the hose was the only tolerable outdoor job anyway!

Clean-up day for the porch! Everything out!

 

We took time out on Saturday to take my 96-year-old father-in-law to a local park for a picnic lunch--the time outdoors is really good for him, and he enjoys it. Even though we've been hearing a lot about the 17-year cicadas that are out now around here, we weren't quite prepared for the NOISE! They are very localized, so we hadn't experienced this yet, but WOW, we were stunned by the sound level--you can't imagine what it's like being out there surrounded by them! It was deafening. (Sorry, Blogger wouldn't upload my video.) So much for a quiet picnic - ha ha - but my FIL enjoyed the novelty and was engaged and asking questions (he has some dementia), so that was good.

And, of course, we enjoyed our books last week! Here's what we've all been reading:

I finished my first Big Book Summer book, End of Watch by Stephen King. This is the 3rd and final book in the Mr. Mercedes trilogy. I enjoyed Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers. And my husband has been waiting for me to read this last book, so he and I can watch seasons 2 and 3 of the Mr. Mercedes TV show! I won't give away any spoilers, but this third book continues the story of Bill Hodges, a retired police detective in Ohio, and his now-business-partner, Holly Gibney (who also makes an appearance in King's The Outsider). Together, they solved the case of the Mercedes Massacre in book 1 and the stolen manuscript in book 2, but now a suspiciously odd string of suicides brings them back into an active police investigation. It was gripping and super-suspenseful, as always. The first two books were mostly straight-up mystery/thriller stories, but this third one brings in some of that King creepiness with some supernatural phenomena. Last night, we started season 2 of the Mr. Mercedes TV show, but it was highly annoying to me how much was different from the books, including the killing off of a beloved character! Best to wait a bit longer after reading a book to watch it's TV or movie adaptation.

Now, I am reading my last book group pick before a summer hiatus, The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson. The author is the famous advice columnist, Ask Amy, but this is a very personal memoir. It's about her family and her hometown, and her experiences going back there as a single mother after a devastating divorce. As she explains in the beginning of the memoir, hers is a family of mostly women (dubbed by her daughter as The Mighty Queens of Freeville), and many of them are/were divorced single mothers. I'm only on chapter three so far, but it's already excellent: moving and immersive. She's very honest about how damaged she felt after the unexpected divorce and her struggle to get back on her feet and figure out what to do with her life. I'm also enjoying that her hometown is in Upstate NY, not too far from where I grew up (though I grew up in a suburb of Rochester vs. her rural town). It's great so far!

On audio, I am listening to another Big Book! (Yes, audios count for the challenge, too, based on the page count in the print book.) I am listening to The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna by Juliet Grames, a novel published in 2019. I've heard lots of rave reviews of this book, so I've been looking forward to listening to it (saving it for Big Book Summer). It's the story of a woman named Stella, who encounters many life-threatening incidents during her childhood in rural Italy and adolescence in the United States. She protects her younger sister, Tina, but life changes dramatically when the family immigrates to America just before WWII. The story is told from the perspective of a family member in Connecticut in the present day, to explain why the two now-elderly sisters don't get along. It's an engaging and unique family epic, and I'm enjoying it so far.

My husband, Ken, is also reading his first Big Book Summer pick (yes, he joins the challenge, too!), For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Like me, he likes to read classics once in a while, and this one has been on our shelves for a bit. It's about the Spanish Civil War and is based on Hemingway's own travels to Spain as a journalist in 1937 to cover the war for the North American Newspaper Alliance. I think this is the third Hemingway novel my husband has read, but I have never read anything by Hemingway! I know, isn't that crazy? I never even read any Hemingway in school. Ken was struggling with this one at first. He said the language was very different from other Hemingway novels, and it was hard to understand. He seems to be getting into the story now, though it is still slow-going.

I believe our 26-year-old son is still immersed in one of his favorite series, Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. He's reading book 4, Rhythm of War, which is a mere 1232 pages ... and hardcover! He loves epic fantasy, the longer the better--it's always Big Book Summer for him! 

 

 

 

 

Blog posts last week:

Movie Monday: Chaos Walking - film adaptation of one of our favorite YA trilogies!

New E-Mail List (I had such high hopes!)

Fiction Review: Force of Nature by Jane Harper - super-twisty thriller set in the Australian wilderness

Fiction Review: Clock Dance by Anne Tyler - LOVED this novel! I missed Tyler.

Middle-Grade Graphic Novel Review: 7 Reasons Not to Grow Up by Jimmy Gownley

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?

 

Middle-Grade Review: 7 Good Reasons Not to Grow Up

Last month, in between my longer books, I squeezed in a middle-grade graphic novel, 7 Good Reasons Not to Grow Up by Jimmy Gownley. This novel surprised me, in a good way, with more emotional depth than I first expected, and I enjoyed reading it. 

It's a story of a diverse group of middle-school friends, but it is mostly about one boy, Kirby Finn. Kirby is the most popular guy in school, loved by all (except the principal), always smiling, and super-cool. Kirby leads the After-School Resistance at Greycliff Academy, a loose group of friends doing good deeds, driving Principal Cudgel crazy, and getting into trouble. Kirby is also the guy behind the funny "7 Good Reasons Not to Grow Up" videos that mock the adults in their lives and make him even more popular. He is often getting the group together to help another kid, whether someone at their school or a kid he just happens to encounter who needs help. Kirby is everyone's hero. But Kirby is also mysterious, and no one--not even his best friend, Raja--knows his secrets. When Raja does learn one of Kirby's hidden truths, he discovers it's a whopper. The kids come together this time to help Kirby and to learn to face some very grown-up issues.

Sample page from 7 Good Reasons Not to Grow Up

At first, I thought this graphic novel was just silly and fun and perhaps a bit frenetic. I didn't honestly like it that much at first, but I thought, "Well, I'm not the target audience here." But it grew on me as the story developed and grew more complex, encountering some serious issues and digging into some real emotions. Gownley uses a very fun, modern, multi-media approach, with video clips, Guessipedia and dictionary entries, and other online-type elements, along with the more traditional graphic novel panels. I ended up really enjoying this unique graphic novel and getting immersed in the stories of Kirby and the other kids, who all have a lot of heart.

258 pages, Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 

Or you can order 7 Good Reasons Not to Grow Up from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: Clock Dance

For Mother's Day, my son gave me Clock Dance by Anne Tyler. My husband and I both enjoyed some of Tyler's earliest novels, like Breathing Lessons and The Accidental Tourist, but then we sort of lost track of her, so I've been wanting to read her more recent novels. Clock Dance reminded me of what a talented writer Tyler is. I loved this warm, sweet novel and can’t wait to read more of Tyler’s recent work.

 

The novel opens to the story of a young girl named Willa growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania in 1967, with a little sister, a kind father, and an unreliable mother. Willa’s life is turned upside down when her mother leaves without a word, with the family upset and not knowing when she’ll come back. The novel visits Willa's life at four different times--1967, 1977, 1997, and 2017--and Willa has a chance to change her life at each of these major turning points. In 1977, her college boyfriend asks her to marry him, though she’d prefer to wait a year and finish her degree first. In 1997, a major tragedy completely upends Willa’s quiet life as a wife, mother, and part-time professor. And in 2017, Willa receives a phone call from a stranger with a tenuous link to her who asks for her help. Acting impulsively for the first time in her life, Willa travels across the country to Baltimore to help these people she’s never met. While there, her eyes are opened to a whole different kind of life among a group of quirky but kind people.

 

I'd forgotten just how amazing Tyler's writing is! This novel is heartwarming, immersive, funny, and uplifting, all about community and found families. It’s peopled by the kind of quirky, likable characters Tyler is known for, especially that last part of the story in Baltimore. I loved every minute of it, and even though the ending was perfect, I was so sad to leave Willa and her friends behind. I'm still thinking about it and missing it weeks later, so that should tell you something! Now that I know what I’ve been missing, I will be reading more from Anne Tyler.

 

304 pages, Vintage

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, from the first chapter, in 1967, and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 
  

Or you can order Clock Dance from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: Force of Nature

My husband and I both enjoy Jane Harper’s Australian thrillers centered around Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk, starting with her first, The Dry, which we both read last year. I gave him the second in the series, Force of Nature, and just finished reading it myself (the best kind of gift!). Once again, Harper's suspenseful and twisty novel kept me riveted.

While The Dry focused on a remote town plagued by drought, Force of Nature takes the action into a very wet environment (though still remote). Five women go into the woods (the Australian bush) on a Thursday for a weekend-long corporate backpacking retreat, a mandatory team-building activity for the family-run financial company. The men's group returns on time Sunday, but when the women's group finally staggers out of the forest, many hours late, there are only four women. One of them, Alice, is missing. The remaining women are Jill, a high-level executive who runs the family business with her brother; Lauren, a timid, nervous-seeming woman who had known Alice since they were girls in school together; and twin sisters, Beth and Bree. Bree is an executive assistant intent on working her way up in the company, while Bree is labeled as the trouble-maker, given a job (with her sister's help) in data entry in the basement after rehab and a stint in jail. Falk and his partner, Carmen, get called in because Alice just happens to be their main informant in building a case against the company. As the search for Alice continues, the higher-ups in law enforcement pressure Falk to finish obtaining the necessary evidence against the company, but how can they do that without Alice? Did she merely get lost? Did her prickly personality go too far and get her in trouble with her fellow hikers? Or is something more sinister going on? 

The narrative unfolds in two timelines: the present-day, as Aaron, Carmen, and the searchers try to find Alice and investigate what happened out in the wilderness, and in flashbacks to the backpacking trip itself, slowly unfolding from Thursday to Sunday. Along the way, while the police try to figure things out by interviewing the men and women involved, the reader also sees exactly what happened out in the wilderness, as one incident after another puts the group of women into greater danger and increases the already-strained relationships between them. This was one of those mysteries/thrillers where I suspected a different character/explanation every chapter or two, as the intricate threads of the story were slowly, gradually unwound. I really enjoyed this super-twisty, tense, and unpredictable story that kept me turning the pages until the very end.

324 pages, Flatiron Books

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, from the Prologue, and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!    
  

 

Or you can order Force of Nature from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

New E-Mail List

I just wanted to post a quick note to all of my blog readers who subscribe by e-mail and receive these posts in their e-mail.

The old e-mail list provider, Feedburner, will no longer be providing this service as of July, so I have (with a lot of time and a lot of help from my friend at Completely Full Bookshelf!) moved the list over to a new provider, Mailchimp.

The first Mailchimp e-mail should have gone out at 4 pm today ( a few minutes ago), and after I post this note, I will de-active the old Feedburner list ... so you may get two different e-mails of yesterdays' posts.

From now on, however, you'll continue to get just one notification when a new blog post is posted, and the new e-mails from Mailchimp should have a nicer, more modern look and more features.

In addition to receiving the blog posts via e-mail, I may occasionally use the e-mail list to send out an extra notification, tell you about a giveaway or other special event, or perhaps, someday when I have the time (ha ha), even send a monthly newsletter. But, do not fear getting too many e-mails from me (except for this week, when there may be doubles) - I just don't have the time! And I will never sell or share your e-mail address.

So, if you are signed up for e-mails, you should continue receiving them but they will look slightly different (better). If you were signed up, but your e-mails stop (I did have to delete some "unverified" addresses) or if you were not signed up for e-mails and you'd like to be, just enter your address into the Subscribe by E-Mail box at the top of the sidebar.

That's it! I look forward to continuing to pop up in your Inbox!

Movie Monday: Chaos Walking

Since the pandemic started and theaters closed (I am not fully vaccinated yet), we have mostly avoided new release movies. Why pay for a movie at home when so many are available for free? But we made an exception this weekend when I saw that Chaos Walking had finally been released, after many delays. It is based on a book trilogy by the same name by Patrick Ness that my husband, son, and I had all enjoyed very much. It's a bit misleading because Chaos Walking is the name of the whole trilogy, and this movie (I'm guessing the first of three) is really just adapted from the first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go. My husband and I both enjoyed the movie adaptation and thought they did a good job of capturing the first book.

Todd, played by Tom Holland of Spiderman fame, is the only boy in his town of Prentisstown, where all citizens are men, and there are no women. It is clear that this is not Earth, though the terrain looks similar. The men are all afflicted by The Noise here. All of their thoughts can be heard by others; there are no secrets here. Can you imagine? Todd's mother, along with the other women, died long ago, and he has been brought up by two kind men, Ben and Cillian, who care for him on their farm. Mayor Prentiss, played by Mads Mikkelsen, can be somewhat menacing at times, though he's kind to Todd. Everything in Prentisstown changes in an instant when a spacecraft crash lands nearby, with a single occupant, a young girl named Viola, played by Daisy Ridley of Star Wars. Todd finds Viola in the woods and is shocked since he has never seen a girl before (remember that Viola can hear all his thoughts!). When the townsmen start coming after Viola, Ben urges Todd to run and to keep her safe. As the two young people, and Todd's dog, Manchee, run off through the forests, lakes, and rivers, they are chased by the men of Prentisstown but must also avoid the dangerous natives of the planet, creatures called Spackle. They are trying to find another town that Ben told them about, where Viola might be able to make contact with the next ship of colonizers that is on its way.

So, as you can tell by the description, this is a sci fi adventure/thriller, with lots of action and suspense. Being able to hear Todd's thoughts adds some elements of humor to the movie, to lighten the sometimes-tense mood. Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley are the stars here, with the majority of the screen time, and they are both outstanding actors, though the supporting cast is good, too (I was surprised to see Nick Jonas). For lovers of the books, like us, it seemed like the movie held pretty close to the events of the book (it's been a while since we read it, which is usually the best way to see a book adaptation on screen). My one disappointment was you couldn't hear Manchee's (the dog) thoughts in the movie. Hearing Manchee's doggie thoughts was the funniest part of the book! Overall, we enjoyed the movie and are looking forward to the next one--hopefully, we won't have to wait as long for that one.

Chaos Walking is a new release, so it is available in some theaters, but it is also available for a small fee at the usual pay-per-view options, including Redbox, YouTube, Google Play, and Amazon, where we watched it. Like I said, we don't normally pay for at-home movies, but I figured $5.99 is quite a bargain compared to about $30 for two tickets and popcorn in the theater!