Hey Bookish Peeps!
We’ve hit that halfway point for the year and it’s time to check in with reading challenges! I’ve managed to reach 70 books out of my overall 110 so far – Woot! I think this is the first year that Goodreads isn’t strongly saying I’m behind in my readings going into July. Although, my sister-in-law is WAY ahead of me in the total books she has finished so far. Easily surpassing the 100 books completed level already. I’m feeling a little left behind, lol! I’m trying to catch up, but I think she’s gonna take the trophy for most reads this year. Even though our counts are way up there, remember – we’re obsessed and clearly a bit crazy. We are certainly the outliers in the reading goals people should have for themselves! Read at the pace you are comfortable with. It doesn’t matter how many your read or how you read (audio or written word), reading anything is better than not in my opinion!
If you were around last month, you saw that I got an absolutely adorable puppy, which led to a super late posting. Odin is doing great! It feels like the little terror has always been at the house. He loves to play tug with Jasmine and Apollo (our two bigger dogs). And Odin LOVES to play in water. If he isn’t trying to stand in the water dishes or jump into the bath tubs, he is outside playing in the little puppy pool we got him. Considering we are in the start of summer in the South, I don’t blame the kid wanting to be in the cool water all the time.
This week is 4th of July for those of us who celebrate it. I hope everyone gets the chance to enjoy the cook-outs, the company of friends and family, fireworks, and any other celebrations you do for the holiday. Let’s try not to burn anything down, keep everything attached that you started the day with, and if you’ve got pets, keep an eye on them once the fireworks start going off!
Also, the Olympics start this month on the 26th. I love watching the open ceremonies! Well, actually I love watching the Olympics in general – when I get the chances to that is – but the opening are so cool to see. Anyone else excited to watch what Paris is gonna do?! I wish every country and their athletes the best in their matches/competitions!
Happy 4th everyone! Happy July! Good Luck in the Olympics! And Happy Reading!
Reading Theme: Numbers in the Title
Decided to go for the numbers this month since I’ve been checking on my reading challenge’s count. There’s a connection there in my mind, trust me. Ha! The books in my reading list all have some type of number found in the title. I know one of them literally has numbers, but for the most part, I was happy with just finding the numbers in word form. I probably missed some pretty big titles in the book world that would be able to fit in this month’s challenge. Let me know in the comments below or reach out in the contact me form! I’d love to know about more books you all know about.
Happy Reading Everyone!
My Reading List for July 2024:
One Bad Apply By Sheila Connolly
Meg Corey has come to the quaint New England town of Granford, Massachusetts, to sell her mother’s old colonial home and apple orchard. Instead, she becomes embroiled in development plans that include her land, and her former flame from Boston. When he’s found dead in the new septic tank on her property, the police immediately suspect Meg, whose only ally in town is the plumber Seth Chapin. Together, they’ll have to peel back the layers of secrecy that surround the deal in order to find the real murderer, and save the orchard.
11/22/63 By Stephen King
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back?
Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students, a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night fifty years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk. Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane, and insanely possible, mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination.
So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life, a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.
Three Fates By Nora Roberts
When the RMS Lusitania sank in 1915, one survivor became a changed man, giving up his life as a petty thief. But the man still kept the small silver statue he lifted, saving it as a reminder of his past and a family heirloom for future generations. A century later, that priceless heirloom—one of a long-separated set of three—has been stolen again.
Malachi, Gideon, and Rebecca Sullivan are determined to recover their great-great-grandfather’s treasure, reunite the Three Fates, and make their fortune. Their quest will take them from their home in Ireland to Helsinki, Prague, and New York, where they will meet a brilliant scholar who will aid them in their hunt—and an ambitious woman who will stop at nothing to acquire the Fates….
The Thousand Names By Django Wexler
Enter an epic fantasy world that echoes with the thunder of muskets and the clang of steel—but where the real battle is against a subtle and sinister magic….
Captain Marcus d’Ivoire, commander of one of the Vordanai empire’s colonial garrisons, was resigned to serving out his days in a sleepy, remote outpost. But that was before a rebellion upended his life. And once the powder smoke settled, he was left in charge of a demoralized force clinging tenuously to a small fortress at the edge of the desert.
To flee from her past, Winter Ihernglass masqueraded as a man and enlisted as a ranker in the Vordanai Colonials, hoping only to avoid notice. But when chance sees her promoted to command, she must win the hearts of her men and lead them into battle against impossible odds.
The fates of both these soldiers and all the men they lead depend on the newly arrived Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich, who has been sent by the ailing king to restore order. His military genius seems to know no bounds, and under his command, Marcus and Winter can feel the tide turning. But their allegiance will be tested as they begin to suspect that the enigmatic Janus’s ambitions extend beyond the battlefield and into the realm of the supernatural—a realm with the power to ignite a meteoric rise, reshape the known world, and change the lives of everyone in its path.
The Fifth Season By N. K. Jemisin
This is the way the world ends. Again.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
