What I read Week of 10/23

It was a good week for reading this week!

Not only because I read six (6!!) of them, but because the ones I read were really enjoyable.

First off, I finished a re-read of Egypt's Sister by Angela Hunt. Hunt is a Biblical-fiction author. What this means is she takes stories from the Bible, typically women's stories, and expands on them. Egypt's Sister is not the first book of hers I've read; Jerusalem's Queen and Esther are two others I've read and would recommend. They don't harp on the virtues of "Christians" but more like she gives voice to women who were silenced in the writing of that particular religious work. The first time I read Egypt's Sister was when I realized the Augustus Julius Gaius Caesar was alive at the same time as the reported birth of Jesus Christ. (The things they don't teach you anywhere else!)

Each year I do a re-read of specific books that I've dubbed my "Fall of Egypt series." I start with Nefertiti by Michelle Moran. Next is Heretic Queen (also Moran). Then Egypt's Sister (Hunt), followed by Cleopatra's Daughter (another Moran). I usually end the series with Stephanie Dray's Lily of the Nile; it's Book 1 in her Cleopatra's Daughter series but the rest dive deeper into a mystical retelling, so I usually stop with Lily.

Version: Audible, Audiobook

I binge-read the first four books in this series and I freaking LOVED them! They're incredible. And I lucked out with the timing because I finished them about a week or so before this was released. I can't remember the last time I hit "Read for Free" upon a release date!

This is an age-gap romance with former military and the town's scape-goat. Well, I mean, Bailey's family is notorious in town while she's worked hard to keep her head down. Beau is struggling with his new role as former special ops in the military. It was sweet and spicy with a delicious slow burn... like a good Chinese meal. (I don't know. Sounded good at the time!)

There were enough twists to keep you guessing even when you knew--you just knew!!--these two would get through it. Read the TWs because the topics Elsie brings to the table are authentic and handled realistically.

Version: Kindle Unlimited, eBook

This was the September/October selection for the book club I'm a part of. We break the books up into 3 or 4 chunks depending on the time and size. Anyways.

I'm a huge Kristin Hannah fan. I read Four Winds as part of another book club a few years back and loved it. So when this go round we opted for Historical Fiction, I thought we should look at another KH book. This one was highly recommended and none of us had read if before so... done!

Set in the 1970s - 1980s, this book follows a family in the wake of the Vietnam War/Conflict. The dad, Ernt, is a POW survivor and suffers from PTSD. He's seen what happens when you "blindly follow the government" and refuses to put his family in harm's way again. In a stroke of good fortune, he inherits a piece of land in Alaska and an effort to save his family, he moves them there. It's stunning wilderness and dangerous beauty and love and hate.

From the start, we were hooked. We had all the things to say about Lenny (the FMC and daughter in the family), Cora (mom), and Ernt. The side-characters quickly become as valued as the MCs. We all had opinions on the atrocities Lenny and Matthew--another beloved character--endured.

This book, though... Man. It makes you think. It makes you question yourself because if you were living in the time, what would you do? How would you survive? Laws and expectations and generally accepted ideals impact so much of the story. You can't read it with a 2020s mindset, which makes this even more layered.

Like an onion. Because you will cry.

Version: Audible, Audiobook

Honestly, this was not a favorite of mine. The issue was mainly me, though. Maybe. Kinda. Sorta.

See, I clicked on this because of a Reel. The reel made it seem like this was a 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶 book.

It's not.

It's clean.

So, while I personally want to dip it due to the lack of spice, that's not fair to the author. They did put sweet romance on the cover. I just didn't look at the cover when I read the blurb. And we're back full circle where the let-down is my fault.

So, yeah. This is a sweet, clean romance. It's childhood friends reuniting after years apart. Baby age gap (4 years). Hockey romance. Very contemporary with the Clock-app references.

If you want sweet and clean and you know that's what this is going in, it's probably a fun ride.

Version: Kindle Unlimited, eBook

Finally a book about finding love in your "later years"!

The FMC is in her forties; in fact, she celebrates her 44th (? I think. Pretty sure) birthday during the story. Recently divorced following her husband's infidelity, she relocates to Scotland to go through the home she was left by an uncle. When the sorting takes longer than she expected, she decides to take on a job with the local book store.

I already had this book in my Audible Library as a purchase made when I was in my "bookshop" or "Great Britian" hyperfixation. It's very likely those two overlapped at one point and this was a side effect of that!

Did I love it? Eh... no. It was fine. Fun. But it drug on for me. I ended up skipping sections in the audiobook and didn't feel like I had missed too much.

I also just wasn't in that headspace anymore of wanting to read about bookshops, so that probably had a lot to do with it.

In the end, I did like what I read/listened to. It was a fun story while I did a tedious chore and that's why I bumped it up. It's probably a 3.5 for me if I am doing halfsies.

Version: Audible, Audiobook

It's the holiday season...

Well, maybe not quite this holiday, but it seems like a lot of authors released winter-holiday themed books in the month of October. This one in particular, Offside Yuletide, is not released as of yet, but I did get to read it as part of Victoria Denault's ARC team.

ARC stands for Advanced Reader Copy. I feel like that sort of says it all, but just in case: ARC readers receive a copy of an upcoming book before it's released. We read it, help the author with some quirks that might have been missed in editing etc, and then leave reviews when it's published. Reviews are the key to success for getting books out there, so it feels like a big deal. Ultimately, though, we readers just love getting access to our favorite authors.

Offside Yuletide is book 2 in the Comets Christmas series. This is a novella, which I typically am not a fan of. There's a good reason though: Most novellas are insta-love stories. I don't particularly care for insta-love. (Insta-LUST is totally different and I am here for those!)

What I love most about this is that there's build up. There's tension. There's all the facets of a full length romance novel, we just get it so much faster.

It's age gap where she's older by 10 years. It's professional hockey (which, aren't we all in our hockey romance era?). It's "teammate's mom" which isn't done a whole helluva lot.

It's he falls hard.

It's got a hot tub scene. You're hooked now, aren't you? I know. I was too at that point.

From the looks of it, this will NOT be an KU book, but it's reasonably priced at $2.99. Go preorder it now and have it ready and waiting for you November 1st.

Version: ARC, eReader