I love books about books, and The Book Swap by Tessa Bickers more than delivers on that front. After quitting her job, Erin Connolly decides she needs a fresh start and begins by decluttering her bedroom. Unfortunately, one of the items she accidentally gets rid of is her heavily annotated copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, when she drops off a bunch of books at a local community library. But then the book turns up back in the library a week later with new notes in the margins and an invitation to meet her new friend in Great Expectations.
Thus begins a conversation between Erin and her Mystery Man. As they share their favorite novels with each other, their friendship deepens and leads them both to hope for something more. Unbeknownst to them, however, they already know each other in real life, and their history is not good.
I enjoyed the juxtaposition between the relationship that develops through the book exchanges and the conflict that arises whenever the two meet in real life. The POV switches back and forth between Erin and James throughout the book, so we are privy to both sides as the story unfolds as to what happened in their past. Bickers does a great job with the second chance storyline, but the book encompasses a lot more than that as it also deals with grief, family relationships, and coming into your own as an adult.
There were a lot of great classic works highlighted in this book, and I was especially intrigued by the book the main characters had shared an interest in when they were in school together, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Somehow, I have never read it, and I am hoping to get to it this year.
This month, Amazon Prime members are able to pick two free books from a selection of ten from a variety of genres.
I picked these two:
There’s Something About Mira by Sonali Dev – a novel about Mira Salvi, whose perfect life is interrupted in an exciting way when she finds a lost ring and goes on an adventure to try to find the owner.
The Art of Starting Over by Heidi McLaughlin – a later in life romance between Devorah Campbell, whose marriage fell apart when her husband cheated on her, and Hayden McKenna, who lost his wife a year ago.
I’m not sure when I’ll get to them because I have so many books ahead of them on my TBR, but they both sound promising.
2024 was a great year for reading for me. I set a goal of 52 books and blew past it, finishing at a total of 99 books. Also, in the last few years I have not read much nonfiction, but in 2024 I finished 13, up from 4 the previous year.
Without further ado, here are my top 10 reads from 2024:
No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister
The Sister Effect by Susan Mallery
Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookstore by Bo-Reum Hwang
A brand new year – so exciting! It’s fun to look back on the year that we have just finished as well as to look forward to the next twelve months.
What I’m Reading Now
I currently have three books out from the library, so I am listing them all under this section. Hopefully I will finish them all before the due dates!
The Taste of Ginger by Mansi Shah
Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society by Darien Gee
What I Recently Finished
Fiction:
The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg
The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick
Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev
The Book Swap by Tessa Bickers
The Handmaid and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg
The Healer’s Apprentice by Melanie Dickerson
Return to Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth
Miss Amelia’s List by Mercedes Lackey
Nonfiction:
Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church by Rachel Held Evans
UnClobber: Rethinking Our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality by Colby Martin
Short Stories:
When We Were Friends by Jane Green
The Answer Is No by Fredrick Backman
Cruel Winter with You by Ali Hazelwood
Merry After Ever by Tessa Bailey
All by My Elf by Olivia Dade
Merriment and Mayhem by Alexandria Bellefleur
Only Santas in the Building by Alexis Daria
What I Added to my TBR
Happy After All by Maisey Yates
The Autumn of Ruth Winters by Marshall Fine
One Big Happy Family by Susan Mallery
Wedding at Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth
My Friends by Fredrik Backman
Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes
Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry by Beth Allison Barr
Queer & Christian: Reclaiming the Bible, Our Faith, and Our Place at the Table by Brandan Robertson
The Year of What If by Phaedra Patrick
The Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance by Jemar Tisby
What Happened to the McCrays? by Tracey Lange
Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop: A Memoir by Alba Donati
Never Meant to Stay by Trisha Das
Christmas at the Little Paris Hotel by Rebecca Raisin
A Bookshop Christmas by Rachel Burton
The Second Chance Year by Melissa Wiesner
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory
The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
How to Read a Book by Monica Wood
Plymouth Undercover by Pamela M. Kelley
TBR Stats
I currently have 120 books on my TBR
Of those, 20 are nonfiction and 100 are fiction
All of the books were added in 2024
One of my goals for 2025 is to read 2 nonfiction books each month. I usually set an overall goal on the Goodreads Reading Challenge as well. Last year, I put down 52 and I ended up finishing 99 books. This year, I may be a bit more ambitious and put down 75.
If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!
I found Close Knit by Jenny Colgan to be quirky and enjoyable. Gertie lives on a small island in the north of Scotland, where she spends most of her time working, knitting, and daydreaming. When she develops a crush on the owner of the small local airline, she takes a job as an air stewardess despite never having been on a plane.
My favorite part of the book was the myriad of interesting characters. I especially enjoyed the storyline about Struhan, a local elementary school teacher and musician who was Gertie’s high school crush. Some of them, like Morag, appeared in an earlier book, The Summer Skies. I prefer to read books in order, but this one does stand alone if you haven’t read it.
One thing I liked about Gertie is that, even though she lacks confidence in some areas, she is willing to step out and be herself. For example, she knits using muted colors because that’s what she loves, even though the other women in the knitting circle keep pushing her to use bolder colors. She also makes the decision to move out of her mother’s house and become a bit more independent.
By my count, this is the twenty-fourth book I have read by Colgan, so I am definitely a fan! I highly recommend giving her a try.
I have been reading ebooks almost exclusively for a few years now, but there are some books on my TBR that I haven’t been able to locate for free electronically. So I have started going back to the library for physical books at times.
Here is my most recent haul from the library:
The Taste of Ginger by Mansi Shah
Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev
Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
The Book Swap by Tessa Bickers
The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society by Darien Gee
First up is Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors. I am excited for this one because it is the first in a series that are based loosely on Jane Austen.
The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg – I am almost done with this book, and it is really good!
UnClobber by Colby Martin – This book addresses the “clobber passages” from the Bible that are often used to condemn homosexuality and also tells Martin’s own story of how his views on the subject changed and how it has affected his life. It is very easy to read and I am enjoying it.
What I Recently Finished
The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley by Mercedes Lackey – This is #16 in the Elemental Masters series and was very enjoyable, as all of them have been.
Holiday Hideaway by Mary Kay Andrews – This was a Christmas-themed short story and was a cute romance.
Gryphon in Light by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon – This is #1 in Kelvren’s Saga and who knows what book in the entire Valdemar series. It took me a little while to get into the story, but I ended up liking it by the end.
The Christmas Inn by Pamela M. Kelley – This is a heartwarming holiday romance. I couldn’t put it down – very sweet!
Nantucket Summer House by Pamela M. Kelley – This is #9 in the Nantucket Beach Plum Cove series. It wasn’t my favorite in the series but I did still enjoy it.
Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions by Rachel Held Evans – I loved this book. I will share a more detailed review in a few days.
The Cookbook Club: A Novel of Food and Friendship by Beth Harbison – This was a fun book about three women who start a book club based on cookbooks. It was charming and I really enjoyed it.
Close Knit by Jenny Colgan – I have read a lot of Colgan’s books and I still like them, although not as much as I used to like her older books.
What I Added to my TBR
Nobody’s Perfect by Sally Kilpatrick
The Answer is No by Fredrick Backman
Star-Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding A True Faith by April Ajoy
Shoe Addicts Anonymous by Beth Harbison
Hope in a Jar by Beth Harbison
TBR Stats
I currently have 111 books on my TBR
Of those, 17 are non-fiction and 94 are fiction
All but 1 of the books were added in 2024. I plan to read the last book added in 2023 this month
If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!
If you are looking for a feel-good holiday story as Christmas gets closer, then The Christmas Inn by Pamela M. Kelley is the book for you. I started reading Kelley’s books in 2021 with The Restaurant and have since read a number of her books. Most of her books are set in the Cape Cod area of the United States, which provides a charming setting no matter the time of year.
In The Christmas Inn, we meet Riley Sanders, who has just lost her job and comes home to the Cape to help her mother with her inn while she looks for another job. During her stay, we meet several other characters, including a possible love interest, and also get to experience what it’s like to be on the Cape during the holidays.
I read this in one day so I would definitely say that it’s an easy read and also very inviting.
This intriguing novel by Rebecca Serle is the story of Daphne Bell and her lovelife. Each time she meets a man, she receives a slip of paper with the man’s name and a number which represents the amount of time she will spend with him. The number varies from person to person, but it is always right. After twenty years of this, she finally meets someone and the paper she finds has only his name. She is elated at first but soon begins to question her fate.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The touch of magical realism adds a unique twist to the common story of a woman looking for love. Having read so many of these stories over my life, I appreciate when a book offers something unusual to the mix. When the book opens, Daphne seems almost resigned to the way life is for her, always knowing what will happen each time she meets a new love interest. But then she meets Jake and starts hoping for a more permanent future, which sounds great until she starts to realize the reality of their relationship doesn’t match the dreams she had of what true love would look like.
I have read two other books by Serle, both of which include aspects of magical realism as well: In Five Years and One Italian Summer. I highly recommend giving this author a chance.
In So Many Words 