Life

I didn’t realized how much I read in the last month. Whew! I’ve been keeping busy with a lot of Book Bub deals and this month I dove back into audiobooks. I forgot how much I enjoyed them!

Before you check out these reviews, check out what I read during the first few weeks of quarantine.

Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Lately I’ve been tiring of the whole dual timeline thing. I feel like this structure is used a lot—or at least a lot in the books I’m interested in, but Black Rabbit Hall was the perfect use of this device.

It flashes back and forth between the present day where Lorna is looking to host her wedding at Cornwall’s Black Rabbit Hall and the 1960s, when Amber and her family spend their summers in bliss at their vacation home—until her father’s new wife moves in.

This one definitely kept me guessing and interested throughout. This would make a great lazy vacation read, but reading on the patio is as close as I’m getting these days.

Her Mother’s Lies by Rona Halsall • ⭐️

Reading this, I felt like it was a draft of something that could shape up to be a decent airport read. But in its current state, it was almost irritating to work through.

I felt like so much of the story could have been tightened up. Much of it dragged, the characters had the same conversations over and over, plot points were constantly reiterated. It was tiresome.

In the end, the twists just weren’t even that satisfying because they took so long to come and weren’t big enough to be thrilling.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Over the years, I’ve started this book several times. I’ve made it about 100 pages in with each go, but just found it a bit slow. I kept returning to it, though, because I’m a fan of Sarah Waters.

This time, instead of reading, I went with the audiobook version and I absolutely devoured it. I think this was key since the book is a bit slow and pretty lengthy (nearly 500 pages).

No, the book wasn’t as spooky as I hoped, but it was atmospheric and the narration was really terrific. Like all of Sarah Waters’s books, I felt very much taken by the world she created and the characters—likable or not.

The Widow’s House by Carol Goodman • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

On the back of The Little Stranger, I downloaded another audiobook. I realized how much I preferred listening to them over podcasts on a walk or the TV while doing a puzzle. Like the last one, I listened to this one pretty much nonstop.

This book was made for me: ghost stories, mysterious happenings, an old estate, a small town with lots of lore. I was sucked in right away as the protagonist, Claire, returned to her hometown with her husband and became caretakers at an estate owned by their former professor. I dream of doing this sort of thing (with different ends, of course), so it was a great setting to snuggle into.

After listening, I looked up the narrator, Cassandra Campbell. Turns out she also performed two other audiobooks I loved (Bittersweet and Dark Places). I think her style combined with this story was the perfect storm for me. I can’t recommend it enough.

Blackberry & Wild Rose by Sonia Velton • ⭐️

I’ll be honest—I didn’t finish this book. I was tempted to just let this audiobook run its course while I did chores, but life’s too short for aggravating books.

I was intrigued by this book because it had a pretty title and a gorgeous cover. I am a sucker for this sort of thing. Add in that it was historical fiction about silk weavers and I was sold.

But, damn, the characters were just so unlikeable and not in the fun way (like Mad Men‘s Pete Campbell). There were so many nitpicky things about the two protagonists that I just could not stand, but made me stop listening to this one for good was the anti-labor plotline. Maybe it would have been resolved, but the tradesmen in the book were constantly portrayed as being dim-witted, angry rabble-rousers. I couldn’t work under that assumption on top of two really annoying protagonists.

I quit listening three-quarters of the way through.

Like the Willow Tree: The Diary of Lydia Amelia Pierce, Portland, Maine, 1918 by Lois Lowry • 👌

Yes, this is a Dear America book. Remember those? They were some of my absolute favorites as a kid (those and the Royal Diaries spinoff series).

A friend of mine and I have been talking about reading one of these for ages and we both dove in with this extremely topical one from Lois Lowry (the author of The Giver).

I haven’t read a Dear America book since 2002, so I have a hard time comparing it to what I recall were my favorites (the Titanic one for sure and also one about the Great Depression at Christmas). But Like the Willow Tree was an alright read. I learned a lot about the Quakers and a bit more about the 1918 flu epidemic. Maybe that part hit too close to home?

At any rate, a book like this was a good treat. Kind of like eating your favorite childhood cereal. Maybe not as good as you remember but still satisfying.

• • •

That’s a lot of books for me, but I’ve definitely got audiobooks to thank for that. I just started to use Chirp for audiobook deals, so if you’re interested you can use this link for 20% off (and I get 20% off, too!).

Sheltering in place is getting old (it’s day 33 right now), but staying in is allowing me to get a lot of reading done. I’ve gone through five books in the last month—and I’ve got plenty more to turn through yet.

Here’s what I’ve been reading (in my messy living room):

The Stranger in Our Home by Sophie Draper • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I felt like I read this ages ago already, though it was just last month.

Whatever the case may be, I found The Stranger in Our Home to be a satisfying read. There’s a good amount of intrigue, familial secrets that were constantly unfolding and some weird folklore elements I really loved. Also any book that uses a hurdy-gurdy as a motif is a good one as far as I’m concerned.

The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut • ⭐️⭐️

I’ll let Goodreads do the summarizing here: The riveting story of a woman convicted of a brutal crime, the prison psychologist who recognizes her as his high-school crush and the charged reunion that sets off an astonishing chain of events with dangerous consequences for both.

You can see why I’d want to read this. But in the end, I just didn’t really grasp why this psychologist was so into this girl. I found the book to be lackluster.

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell • ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m a sucker for any book that’s about someone inheriting a mansion from an unknown relative. It’s just the perfect setup for me. Secrets, wealth, the promise of ghosts…

The Family Upstairs starts with Libby inheriting a large London home on her 25th birthday. She finds out that the home was the site of a murder-suicide by what many thought was a cult years earlier. Sounds so good, right?!

It wasn’t quite as intriguing as it should have been and one element really didn’t sit with me (it made no sense and it was never resolved), but it was entertaining.

How to Find Love in a Book Shop by Veronica Henry • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve been loving these cozy kinds of books more and more. Especially when they’re as charming and well written as this one.

How to Find Love in a Book Shop centers on Emilia as she takes over her late father’s bookstore, but also folds in plenty of other characters—all with their own personalities and quirks.

This is exactly the kind of book to read during these stressful times.

The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent • ⭐️

I had really high hopes for this book. The setup was super intriguing: Two girls are left alone in their shack in the woods—they’ve never ventured beyond their homestead. One day, they have to leave to survive.

But I found myself just rolling my eyes through most of this. The characters were bland. The plot to absurd to be believed. Skip it.