Hello, hello! I can not believe August is almost over. We’ve packed a lot in: Back to work and school and all the shenanigans that entails, including our oldest starting intermediate school. We an overnight visit from some family and went to watch high school water polo for the first time ever. We took the kids to their first ever concert and it was amazing! (Drew and Ellie Holcomb–if you ever have a chance to see them live, DO IT). And finally, we celebrated the youngest’s birthday. Whew! It feels like a lot, because it is, ha! But when I look back over it like that, it’s been a really fun month. It’s good to remember that when some days feel crazy.
I’m also trying to dig into my newest work in progress, so between writing and having trouble focusing some days, my reading has been fairly light this month. But there have been a couple of highlights, so on to some reviews!
Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten
I really enjoyed this memoir by the iconic woman known to so many as The Barefoot Contessa, and I highly recommend listening to Ina read it herself on audio. She’s had a really interesting life, and there was so much I didn’t know about her! The memoir felt like sitting down with your favorite aunt and hearing all her stories.
You Belong With Me by Mhairi McFarlane. Listen, I am a huge Mhairi McFarlane fan at this point, so it’s no surprise that I liked this book. However, it was a sequel to a book I haven’t read (which I didn’t realize at the time), but I was in desperate want of this kind of romantic-with-layers-and-British-sensibility story. So I kept reading, even though it took me a beat to get my bearings. And while I did thoroughly enjoy it, I think it maybe could have been a novella? It was an after-the-happily-ever-after story which is kind of fun, but the stakes didn’t feel quite high enough.
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst was the coziest, most charming fantasy story. The world building was descriptive and immersive, but clearly in service to the plot and characters. It’s a story about found family, libraries, power, and coming to terms with ones past. It also has a really sweet love story. It was the perfect book to get me out of a reading rut.
One Night on the Island by Josie Silver. I’ll be honest, I skimmed the last quarter of this book. I really wanted to love it, and it had all the markings of a book I’d love: a tiny Irish island and village? Check. Forced proximity romance? Check. Woman on a journey of self-love and personal discovery? Check. A delightful cast of secondary characters? Check. The problem, was that I didn’t like the main male character, I didn’t believe the female character, and the story felt phoned in. I recognize that this may be a me problem, and someone else might swoon over this book, but ultimately it just didn’t land for me.
That’s it for now! As always, if you haven’t yet, check out my own feel-good, romantic novels You Again and With You.
Thanks for reading!
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