I’m back for another installment of “What I read: _____!” I know I mention it every single time, but I just LOVE doing these. I’m determined to start making them more detailed because I’ve had requests for more book/reading content recently. Please let me know if you like this format or if there’s something in particular you would like me to share about each read.
In our recent “The Business of Influencing” podcast episode, we talked about what our dream brand sponsorships would be, and after writing this, I’m kicking myself for not saying a publishing house!
This is the best month I have ever had for reading, by a long shot. I’m very cyclical on habits— I get really into streaming, books, cross stitch, etc. all at once. This month was really reading, and I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to read this many books in one month again, but I hope that’s not the case!
So, if you’re looking for great books to curl up to with all winter long, make sure you see which ones I recommend and which ones I’d skip below.
Here we go!
This Time Next Year, Sophie Cousens: 5 stars
Description: Their lives began together, but their worlds couldn’t be more different. After thirty years of missed connections, they’re about to meet again…
Minnie Cooper knows two things with certainty: that her New Year’s birthday is unlucky, and that it’s all because of Quinn Hamilton, a man she’s never met. Their mothers gave birth to them at the same hospital just after midnight on New Year’s Day, but Quinn was given the cash prize for being the first baby born in London in 1990–and the name Minnie was meant to have, as well. With luck like that, it’s no wonder each of her birthdays has been more of a disaster than the one before.
When Minnie unexpectedly runs into Quinn at a New Year’s party on their mutual thirtieth birthday, she sees only more evidence that fortune has continued to favor him. The gorgeous, charming business owner truly seems to have it all–while Minnie’s on the brink of losing her pie-making company and her home. But if Quinn and Minnie are from different worlds, why do they keep bumping into each other? And why is it that each fraught encounter leaves them both wanting more?
A moving, joyful love story, This Time Next Year explores the way fate leads us to the people we least expect–no matter what the odds.
My thoughts: This book was really just what I needed! I read it right around NYE and New Years Day and I was on vacation so it was the perfect read. It wasn’t too heavy but wasn’t shallow at the same time. The characters were also really likable, and I love that cooking/being a chef was sort of a main plot line because I love anything fiction that revolves around food or cooking! I really enjoyed the way the stories leading up in the book are told and come together by the end.
Maybe it’s undeserving of five stars because it’s a lighter book, but life is too short to only read and gush over heavy, earth-shattering reads.
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The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah: 5 stars
Description: France, 1939 – In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France … but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.
Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can … completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.
With courage, grace, and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of World War II and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women’s war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France―a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.
My thoughts: I had been wanting to read this book for a really long time, especially so after reading The Great Alone by the same author earlier this year. She has an incredible way with words and storytelling, unlike any other author I have read. Somehow her books are sad and uplifting at the same time. I love that this book travels forward and backward in time- I usually don’t like when books change perspective and time, but this one is only between the two sisters, and it remains very easy to follow throughout.
I will say this book is incredibly heartbreaking in a way that might be hard to read during this time. With so much going on, it’s sometimes better to read lighter, happier material. That said, I still did enjoy this book, and I am glad I finally knocked it off my list! I just need to make sure I don’t fall into a funk from doing so. I normally don’t enjoy books that switch perspective and time periods, but this one did it in a way that drew me in further, rather than just confusing me.
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The Two Lives of Lydia Bird, Josie Silver: 1 star
Description: Lydia and Freddie. Freddie and Lydia. They’d been together for more than a decade and Lydia thought their love was indestructible. But she was wrong. On Lydia’s twenty-eighth birthday, Freddie died in a car accident.
So now it’s just Lydia, and all she wants is to hide indoors and sob until her eyes fall out. But Lydia knows that Freddie would want her to try to live fully, happily, even without him. So, enlisting the help of his best friend, Jonah, and her sister, Elle, she takes her first tentative steps into the world, open to life—and perhaps even love—again.
But then something inexplicable happens that gives her another chance at her old life with Freddie. A life where none of the tragic events of the past few months have happened.
Lydia is pulled again and again through the doorway to her past, living two lives, impossibly, at once. But there’s an emotional toll to returning to a world where Freddie, alive, still owns her heart. Because there’s someone in her new life, her real life, who wants her to stay.
My thoughts: This was one of the worst books I’ve ever read, and after hearing from many of you, it seems not many of us did like it! This situation is confusing because on Amazon, Book of the Month and Goodreads, this book has great reviews. I think one of the main reasons I didn’t like this book was because it hit a little too close to home. The main character loses her fiance, and being so close to the newlywed phase just makes that too real. On the other hand, if this had been a normal, deep book I don’t think I would have minded as much. Instead this was trying to be somewhere in between a light read and about deep grief at the same time?
Also, the “train of thought” was really scattered and resembling run on sentences for most of the book. I wasn’t sure if this was done on purpose to symbolize grief, but it made for a very odd read through. I will say the book got better toward the end, but overall I don’t think I would have been sad if I hadn’t finished it. I definitely thought One Day in December by the same author was much better!
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Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie: 4 stars
Description: Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. One of his fellow passengers must be the murderer.
Isolated by the storm, detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen of the dead man’s enemies, before the murderer decides to strike again.
My thoughts: This was my first time reading an Agatha Christie book, but now I think I am hooked! They’re really good pallet cleansers and the perfect length to just knock out in a weekend or a couple weeknights when you’re in between big books. I went ahead and signed onto the library’s waitlist for Death on the Nile.
The detective is really likable, and this story just comes together too nicely. If you’ve seen the film, it’s fun even to read this afterwards because you can see all the hints revealing the murderer all along.
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One of Us is Next, Karen McManus: 3 stars
Description: Come on, Bayview, you know you’ve missed this. A ton of copycat gossip apps have popped up since Simon died, but in the year since the Bayview four were cleared of his shocking death, no one’s been able to fill the gossip void quite like he could. The problem is no one has the facts. Until now. This time it’s not an app, though—it’s a game. Truth or Dare. Phoebe’s the first target. If you choose not to play, it’s a truth. And hers is dark. Then comes Maeve and she should know better—always choose the dare. But by the time Knox is about to be tagged, things have gotten dangerous. The dares have become deadly, and if Maeve learned anything from Bronwyn last year, it’s that they can’t count on the police for help. Or protection. Simon’s gone, but someone’s determined to keep his legacy at Bayview High alive. And this time, there’s a whole new set of rules.
My thoughts: This was actually a funny story because I thought this was a sequel to Two Can Keep a Secret, but it was actually a sequel to One of Us is Lying. They’re both by the same author, but it was definitely a weird feeling when I thought I was about to read about one set of characters and it ended up being completely different. Anyway, I really like all the books mentioned, and I’m getting more interested in this author. It’s closer to a Young Fiction for sure, but I like that it’s easy to read and a thriller murder mystery at the same time— those aren’t always one in the same.
If you’re just looking for an easy read, this is probably the one I really recommend from my January reads.
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The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley: 3 stars
Description: During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves. The trip begins innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps, just as a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world. Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead. . . and another of them did it. Keep your friends close, the old adage says. But how close is too close? DON’T BE LEFT OUT. JOIN THE PARTY NOW.
My thoughts: I read The Guest List by Lucy Foley for the book club I’m in and loved it so much. A few of the girls in the book club ordered this book at the same time, and I can really see why Amazon recommends them together. If the same author wasn’t enough, the plot is almost exactly the same. The Guest List takes place at a wedding and this book takes place on a friends vacation, but other than that the characters and plot are pretty identical.
I liked this book as just a general thriller, but in my opinion it didn’t wrap up nearly as well as The Guest List. It felt like there were still loose ends at the close of the book, even though I couldn’t quite put my finger on any of them specifically. I wish there was more insight into some of the other characters’ involvement, motivation and thoughts. It’s still a good book that I would recommend to anyone as a quick, suspenseful read.
Read with Me
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What I’m Reading Next
Okay, I seriously have way too many books in my TBR pile. Somehow I always get off the waitlist for a ton of books from the library at once, and I’m afraid to delay fulfillment of my loan at risk of not getting it for another six months. So all that to say, my February reading recap may be packed as well. Here’s what I’ve got to read
The Goldfinch— I’m currently listening to this on audiobook, about 70% of the way through.
Pretty Little Wife— Also currently reading this. It’s good so far at about 25% through.
Rebecca— I’m sooo excited for this one. I’ll probably start it next because I loved the Netflix movie adaptation of this book. Also there are rumors that “tolerate it” by Taylor Swift is based off this book, but for the life of me I cannot remember where I read/heard that so maybe I’m losing it. Either way I want to believe that in my head while I’m reading this, haha.
The Wife Upstairs— This was a BOTM pick my mom is lending me. It’s a retelling of Jane Eyre which is one of my favorite books.
The Survivors— Excited about this one! It was my January BOTM pick, but I got so many from the library I had to push this one back a little bit.
The Midnight Library— This is our next book club pick, and I’m excited to get into it.
The Four Winds— Kristin Hannah is my new favorite author. Everything she puts out is amazing. This one is set in the Great Depression era, and I can’t lie, I’m excited for potential Kit Kittredge vibes. I was so happy to see this in the February Book of the Month lineup, because her books would typically cost way more than $14.99 including shipping for a hardback, and hers are ones I like to actually keep in my bookshelf forever.
Read with Me
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Thank you for reading this post— I know it was a long one but hopefully a goodie if you like reading! I already can’t wait for February’s. Hope everyone has a great month full of lots of good books.
