This month, Amazon Prime members are able to pick one free book from a selection of eight from a variety of genres.
My pick:
Not Quite by the Book by Julie Hatcher – a novel about Emma Rini, a bookstore owner who needs a break and rents a crumbling manor house. I am intrigued by this one because it was inspired by the work and life of Emily Dickinson.
Bonus:
We also were able to download a bonus short story, The Fall Risk by Abby Jiminez, about two people who get stuck together on Valentine’s Day. It looks cute!
No, these aren’t recommendations for books on fixing your toilet or creating your own website. Check out these “how to” novels for your next great read.
How to Bake a Perfect Life by Barbara O’Neal
How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
How to Get a (Love) Life by Rosie Blake
How to Hide in Plain Sight by Emma Noyes
How to Read a Book by Monica Wood
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
How to Stuff Up Christmas by Rosie Blake
How to Walk Away by Katherine Center
Have you read any of these? If not, which one looks the most interesting?
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
The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick is a charming take on what to do when faced with sudden divorce. When Ginny Splinter’s husband tells her he wants a divorce, she impulsively invites four of her radio show listeners to join her on a trip to Italy that was originally planned as a trip for her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Each of her fellow travelers is facing their own heartbreak, which we learn more about as the novel unfolds.
The group meets up in a quaint hotel called Splendido and gets to know the owner and his daughter while they enjoy the beautiful surroundings. They take several day trips to scenic and historical spots around Italy as well as engage in various activities suggested by each of the members. As they begin to share their stories with each other, they form friendships and offer each other support and understanding that helps them start to move forward through their grief.
I thoroughly enjoyed the descriptions of the Italian culture and countryside, and I appreciated how much Ginny grew in her understanding of her marriage and herself throughout the trip. The ending was especially good, in my opinion, but I won’t say more than that because of spoilers!
One of the perks of having Amazon Prime is getting a free book each month from a short list of editor’s picks. Sometimes we get a bonus short story or even a second book for free. It’s a great deal, and even better because I have Amazon Prime at a discounted price since my son is on Medicaid.
Here’s what I have added to my Kindle for free over the last six months:
July 2024 – We could choose two free books that month, although I ended up only picking one of them. I chose The Bookstore Wedding by Alice Hoffman. It is the second in a series of short stories called The Once Upon a Time Bookshop Stories, so I also purchased the first story, The Bookstore Sisters, and pre-ordered the third one, The Bookstore Keepers.
August 2024 – We got one book free plus a short story. I chose Fatal Intrusion by Jeffery Deaver and Isabella Maldonado for the book. The short story was Natural Selection by Erin Hilderbrand. I have read the short story and it was good but I would have liked it to be longer.
September 2024 – We got one book free plus a short story. I chose The Anti-Heroes by Jen Lancaster for the book. The short story was When We Were Friends by Jane Green.
October 2024 – We were able to pick two books from the list that month. I chose When We Were Widows by Annette Chavez Macias and Grave Talk by Nick Spalding.
November 2024 – We were again able to pick two titles from the list. I chose Nobody’s Perfect by Sally Kilpatrick and The Answer is No: A Short Story by Fredrik Bakman.
December 2024 – We were able to pick one free book from the list and, after that, we got to pick a free book out of another list. I chose Happy After All by Maisey Yates and The Autumn of Ruth Winters by Marshall Fine. The Amazon original short story collection Under the Mistletoe is also free this month for Amazon Prime members. There are five stories, so I downloaded all of them. From the descriptions, it sounds like they might be a little bit spicier.
All together, I got seven free books and nine free short stories. Not bad!
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 Cookbook Club by Beth Harbison is a feel-good chick-lit novel based around food, perfect for a cozy afternoon of reading. I was immediately intrigued by a book club that is centered on cookbooks – the women in the club pick a different cookbook each month and make dishes from that cookbook to share with each other at their meeting. That sounds like a lot of fun!
In the club, we have three women who are all at a crossroads in their lives. Margo’s husband has just left her and asked for a divorce (and left her a run-down farmhouse to boot), Trista has been fired from her law firm and bought a bar/restaurant to run, and Aja is pregnant and in an unhealthy relationship.
The book follows each of the women as they get to know each other through sharing food together. There are a lot of mouthwatering recipe descriptions, including a monthly wrap up of each cookbook club meeting. I do wish there was more description of the actual club meetings, however; I think that would have been a better way to carry the story. Instead, we get a couple of meetings and then it focuses more on the individual women’s lives, although they do interact with each other outside of the meetings at times.
This book has a bit of everything in the way of chick-lit tropes – a failed marriage with a farmhouse to fix up with an old crush, a lost job fueling a new business opportunity, and a pregnancy forcing a young woman to evaluate her relationship with the father. Because of everything going on, it does jump around a bit, but I still found it an enjoyable light read.
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!
In So Many Words 