Sooner rather than Later

Pretty decent reading month, with some real gems. I haven't been great about balancing out the genres, mostly because I'm a bit at the mercy of the hold list at the library and trying to get the books done that are due the soonest.  Here are the recaps:

Pictures of You - Emma Grey - fiction - three stars - Evie Hudson wakes up in a hospital room with no memory of how she came to be there, or of her recent life and her husband who died in the accident that landed her in the hospital.  She realizes she is estranged from all the people she remembers - friends, parents, etc. She runs away from her husband's funeral to try and find answers with the help of a photographer at the funeral (her husband was rich and famous) who isn't actually a stranger to her, she just doesn't remember him. This one was a bit meh.  It was pretty predictable and just so far fetchced in parts it was hard to play along.

Homeseeking - Karissa Chen - historical fiction - five stars - I loved this one. It's the story of childhood friends/sweethearts Suchi and Haiwen who are separated when Haiwen joins the Nationalist army during the Chinese civil war. He is eventually evacuated to Taiwan and then ends up in America, never really knowing what happened to his family back in China. Suchi life also eventually brings her to America where they meet again decades later. Extremely well done.

Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love - Marianne Cronin - fiction - five stars - This is another that I loved.  Eddie Winston is 90, and has never been kissed.  He works in a thrift store, and befriends Bella, who is mourning the loss of her true love. Eddie helps Bella deal with her grief, and you also hear about Eddie's story, and the love that he lost.  I loved the characters, and it's just a really great feel good book.

The One-in-a-Million Boy - Monica Wood - fiction - five stars - When his son dies unexpectedly, Quinn's ex-wife asks him to fulfill the boy's Scout commitment to helping out 104 Ona Vitkus on Saturdays. It's awkward at first, but as he gets to know her, he gets to know the son that he had a very hard time connecting with. This is a really sweet story with characters that are both flawed and so likable.  Such a good book.

Ragtime - E. L. Doctorow - historical fiction - four stars - I picked this one up because I really love the musical Ragtime.  Sadly, I never got to see it, but after listening to the soundtrack again, I was inspired to read the book.  It's a pretty powerful story, and I'm guessing if I was just reading it cold without the soundtrack running in the back of my mind it might have been more like three and a half stars. It's about three families whose lives intersect in the early 1900s.  The book addresses issues of racism, equality, and feminism, but not necessarily in a preachy way which I feel like is the way a lot of more modern books do it.  It just puts it all out there an allows you to draw your own conclusions/parallels.  I really like how Doctorow weaves historical figures throughout the story, and I enjoyed seeing whole sentences/parts of the story that were used in the musical. There were definitely some changes/differences.  I did enjoy the younger brother's backstory and that they kind of tell what happened to him after the events of the book.  I will say the one character that I liked less in the book than the musical was Tata.  I thought there was some hypocrisy in his character that the book seemed to just gloss over.  Good read, and definitely listen to the musical too!

What Happened to the McCrays? - Tracey Lange - fiction - four stars - This one took me a while to get into. I feel like the setup could have been a bit shorter or more focused,...I was probably still wondering if it was going to get better 75 pages in, but once it got going, it was excellent.  Kyle's father has had a stroke, and he goes home to see/care for him after being away for two and a half years.  Of course his childhood home is essentially across the street from where his ex-wife Casey still lives, and she has an excellent relationship with his father. You know at the beginning that something terrible happened to drive Kyle and Casey apart, but what that was isn't clear until much later in the book. I loved that hockey was a theme in the book, and I really enjoyed the characters themselves. Four stars because it really did have a slow start, but definitely worth the read.

Yellowface - R.F. Kuang - fiction - four stars - Juniper's friend Athena Liu is a best selling author who dies in a freak incident.  Juniper is with her at the time, and has just read a bit of Athena's new novel, for whatever reason, she steals it that night, and ends up publishing it as her own. Complicating this, Juniper is white, and Athena is asian, and the book is a historical fiction work about Chinese laborers during WWI.  There was a lot of hype about this book, and I had very high expectations, which this one didn't quite meed, this was more of a three and a half stars rounded up book for me.  I thought the premise was interesting, and how one wrong mood leads to another, and another, and another. I thought it was also an interesting commentary on social media and how that is used for and against the famous.  Decent book, but I never really connected with the character.

We All Live Here - Jojo Moyes - fiction - four stars - I really enjoy Moyes' books. I do think that her historical fiction is a notch above regular fiction, but this was a good solid read.  Lila Kennedy's husband has left her for another mom at her kids' school, and to make matters worse, that woman is now pregnant. As a result, he's having to decrease the child support he provides, and she has spiraling costs due to the house needing repairs.  Her mother also recently passed away, and her stepfather has been living with them to help out and to be near family. She's an author whose next book is due, but she can't get in the mood to write, she's also dealing with a surly teen daugther, and then her estranged father shows up on her doorstep. I enjoyed the chaos that abounds in this book and most of the characters. In truth, Lila herself wasn't my favorite. I found her a bit frustrating not that I hated her, I just wished she was a bit stronger/less blind, but a solid book.

Favorites this month were Homeseeking and The One-in-a-Million Boy, least favorite was Pictures of You.  What have you guys been reading?

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Today I'm hopping with Simon Says Stamp celebrating the new Rain or Shine release. You should be arriving here from Yana Smakula's blog, and I'll have the full hop list below for you. As usual, Simon is giving away a $25 store credit on every stop along the hop.  All you need to do to be entered is leave a comment.  In addition, any order of $23 or more this weekend will receive a Balloon Bouquet die.  Why $23?  Well it's Simon's 23rd birthday this month.  

Today I'm showing off my newest stamp set, Mod Plants.  There are also a couple of coordinating products: dies as well as stencils that perfectly frame the different plant images.

First up a very simple one layer card set.  There are two stencils in the coordinating stencil set, and I picked out two shades of ink in several different colors (Cabbage and Artichoke, Petunia and Pansy, Nutmeg and Paprika, and Morning and Dusk). I used the lighter for the larger square, and the darker for the inner square.  The plant images were then stamped with Versa Clair black ink as were the sentiments which are all from the set.

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Overall a very good month of reading, with a bunch of five stars. I enjoyed this mix of books also.  Here are the recaps:

Behind You Is the Sea - Susan Muaddi Darraj - fiction - five stars - I thought this was quite good. It's essentially a collection of short stories with adjacent characters. The common theme is that they are all Palestinian, and are dealing with life/immigration to the U.S. and assimilation into this country in different ways. As a first generation citizen, I could relate to the issues that some of the characters had with their parents and heritage. Some really thought provoking stories. 

The Murder of Mr. Ma (Dee & Lao, #1) - John Shen Yen Nee - detective - four stars - Judge Dee Ren Jie has arrived in London to investigate the murder of a man he knew during WWI when he was in the Chinese Labor Corps. He teams up with local professor Lao She to help solve the murder, only additional murders begin to occur. The two men get to know each other and their strengths and weaknesses to get to the bottom of the crimes.  This book reminded me a little of the Enola Holmes books, written in a somewhat nostalgic style, but light and easy.

The Frozen River - Ariel Lawhorn - historical fiction - five stars - This was such a good book.  It's about Martha Ballard, a midwife and healer in Maine in the late 1700s. When a man is found dead in the river, she's the first to examine the body and declares it a. homicide. The dead man is not well loved in the community, was involved in an alleged rape, and is set to be put on trial with a co-defendant who happens to be the most powerful man in town. Ballard's life is intertwined with this man in multiple ways. Well written and compelling, Lawhorn weaves together multiple story lines filled with well-developed characters.  Excellent read.

Husbands & Lovers - Beatriz Williams - historical fition - five stars - I feel like the dual-timeline literary device is overutilized and often not that effective. There's usually one timeline hat is much stronger than the other.  This book is the exception to that. I really enjoyed both of the storylines in the book.  In the present day, single mom Mallory Dunne is dealing with her son's failing kidneys while in the past, Hannah, a Hungarian refugee marries well a wealthy Brit following WWII as a means of escape, but not love. I was drawn in by both of the storylines, and am definitely planning to read more from this author. 

Clean: A Novel - Alia Trabucco Zeran - fiction - three stars - This was kind of the dud of the month. Estela takes a job as the maid for a well to do family. The family has issues, particularly the child who seems to be socially stunted, but Estela also seems not quite with it. She should probably have left, but stayed because the needed the money to help with her mother's medical issues. You learn early on that the child has died, but not how. The story slowly unravels as Estela tells the listener, who I assumed was the police, but by the end I was not quite sure. Overall this one was a bit of a drag. There were some good parts, but it was slow. I actually think this would have been one hundred percent better as a short story.

The Midwife of Auschwitz (Women of War #1) - Anna Stuart - historical fiction - five stars - The story of Ana, a Polish midwife who is sent to Auschwitz for helping Jews. Her friend Ester, a Jewish woman, is sent with her and the two of them are put to work as midwives in Auschwitz. Babies do not survive long there, those with Aryan looks are taken and given to German families. Ana and Ester can't stop this, but they begin tattooing the number of the mothers in the babies' armpits so that they might one day be reunited. Well worth the read.

The Rest Is Memory - Lily Tuck - The imagined story of Czeslawa Kwoka, a Catholic Polish girl who was sent to Auschwitz when the Germans invaded Poland and displaced their citizens, giving their lands and homes to Germans. The author's imagination was captured by Czeslawa's photograph when she saw it in the obituary of Wilhelm Brasse, the photographer of Auschwitz. Tuck has set out to learn all she can about Czeslawa, which is not a lot given the scant archival evidence available. She has taken those facts and woven a story about the girl, which I'd call more a novelette than novel, but it's an interesting premise and a quick read.

Good Dirt - Charmaine Wilkerson fiction - five stars - - Ebby Freeman's brother is killed by robbers when she is ten. This act changes the trajectory of her and her parents' lives. Years later, she is left at the altar by her fiance, and she travels to Paris to get away for a while. Things don't go as planned. Woven through the story, via that dual timeline device, is the story of her ancestors who escaped from slavery to settle in New England. Wilkerson did an excellent job of tying in the historical story, showing how that heritage also shaped the family. Another excellent read.

PS: I Hate You - Lauren Connolly - fiction - four stars - I really liked this book until about halfway through and it got very romance novel-ey.  Which was fine, that's just not normally my genre of choice. It's about Maddie Sanderson, whose brother Josh has just died. Josh is really Maddie's only family as her mother and grandmother are pretty toxic and they have functioned without them for the most part. Maddie is left somewhat adrift, and then learns at the funeral that Josh is sending her and his best friend Perry on scavenger hunt of sorts. The only problem is that Maddie hates Perry because he broke her heart many years before. The characters were funny and made me laugh, and there were definitely some twists that I did not expect. Cute light read.

It was hard to pick a favorite this month, but I think The Frozen River is probably it.  I'm off to another good start this month, currently reading Pictures of You which is not bad so far and a very quick read. What are you guys reading?

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

The leaves were die cut and then adhered horizontally to a black cardstock panel, and the excess was trimmed off.

For the sentiment, I pulled out the Just a Note dies, using white for the sentiment itself, and black for the shadow piece.  These were adhered together and then popped up with foam tape.