Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

Inheritance by Evelyn Toynton.

The book is being released by Other Press on September 17, 2019.

The book's jacket copy says: In this luminous novel about romance and illusion--and what's left of love when they're stripped away--an American Anglophile is drawn into the lives of a disintegrating aristocratic family.

After the sudden death of her husband, Annie Devereaux flees to England, site of the nostalgic fantasies her father spun for her before he deserted the family. A chance encounter in London leads Annie to cancel her return to New York and move in with Julian, the disaffected, moody son of Helena Denby, a famous British geneticist. As their relationship progresses, Annie meets Julian's sisters Isabel and Sasha, each of them fragile in her own way, and becomes infatuated with visions of their idyllic childhood in England's West Country. But the more she uncovers about Julian's past, the more he explodes into rage and violence. Finally tearing herself away, Annie winds up adrift in London, rescued from her loneliness only when she and Isabel form an unexpected bond.

Slowly, with Isabel as her reluctant guide, Annie learns of the emotional devastation that Helena's warped arrogance, her monstrous will to dominate, inflicted on her children. The family who once embodied Annie's idealized conception of England is actually caught in a nightmare of betrayal and guilt that spirals inexorably into tragedy.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed over the past few weeks are:

Tomorrow's Bread by Anna Jean Mayhew
Love You Hard by Abby Maslin
Unfurled by Michelle Bailat-Jones
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Smoke by Dan Vyleta
Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
The Bottom of the Sky by Rodrigo Fresan
A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
The Confessions of Young Nero by Margaret George
The Flicker of Old Dreams by Susan Henderson
Speaking of Summer by Kalisha Buckhannon
Breaking the Ocean by Annahid Dashtgard
Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton
The Ventriloquists by E.R. Ramzipoor
The Peacock Summer by Hannah Richell
A Stranger at My Table by Ivo de Figueiredo
The Tubman Command by Elizabeth Cobb
Something Like Breathing by Angela Readman
The Last Ocean by Nicci Gerrard
Vacationland by Sarah Stonich
Retablos by Octavio Solis
The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner
Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner

Reviews posted this week:

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
Congratulations, Who Are You Again? by Harrison Scott Key
Living the Dream by Lauren Berry

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Magnetic Girl by Jessica Handle
Oh, Tama! by Mieko Kanai
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
Exposed by Jean-Philippe Blondel
Here I Am! by Pauline Holdstock
All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung
Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Golden Samovar by Olga Wojtas
Ways to Hide in Winter by Sarah St. Vincent
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
Granny’s Got a Gun by Harper Lin
White Elephant by Julie Langsdorf
At Briarwood School for Girls by Michael Knight
The Optimistic Decade by Heather Abel
All Ships Follow Me by Mieke Eerkens
Like This Afternoon Forever by Jaime Manrique
Gravity Well by Melanie Joosten
Motherhood So White by Nefertiti Austin
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Dear Baba by Maryam Rafiee
Saint Everywhere by Mary Lea Carroll
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Tonic and Balm by Stephanie Allen
Black Light by Kimberly King Parsons
In the Shadow of Wolves by Alvydas Slepikas
The Queen of Hearts by Kimmery Martin
CinderGirl by Christina Meredith
The Death of Noah Glass by Gail Jones
The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis
Autopsy of a Boring Wife by Marie-Renee Lavoie
The Fragments by Toni Jordan
The Question Authority by Rachel Cline
The Plaza by Julie Satow
The Lonely Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya
To Keep the Sun Alive by Rabeah Ghaffari
Haben by Haben Girma
The Paris Orphan by Natasha Lester
Educated by Tara Westover
State of the Union by Nick Hornby
Turbulence by David Szalay
What a Body Remembers by Karen Stefano
The Atlas of Reds and Blues by Devi S. Laskar
Questions I Am Asked About the Holocaust by Hedi Fried
Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok
Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain
Peculiar Questions and Practical Answers by the New York Public Library
The Honey Bus by Meredith May
The Liar in the Library by Simon Brett
The Girls at 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib
Church of the Graveyard Saints by C. Joseph Greaves
Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery by John Gregory Brown
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
Advanced Physical Chemistry by Susannah Nix
Death of a Rainmaker by Laurie Lowenstein
No Good Asking by Fran Kimmel
Laurentian Divide by Sarah Stonich
The Abolitionist's Daughter by Diane C. McPhail
A London Country Diary by Tim Bradford
Crazy Cupid Love by Amanda Heger
A Moveable Feast edited by Don George
Tiny Hot Dogs by Mary Giuliani
Tomorrow's Bread by Anna Jean Mayhew
Love You Hard by Abby Maslin
Unfurled by Michelle Bailat-Jones
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland

Monday Mailbox

This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Meet Me in Monaco by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb came from LibraryThing Early Reviewers.


A novel about a young woman named Sophie in Monaco who becomes a close friend of Grace Kelly's, their long friendship, and the man who cannot stop thinking of Sophie, this sounds perfectly magical.

Obsessed by Elisabeth Bronfen came from me for me


I am salivating over this culinary memoir and cookbook written by a well known cultural critic.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: Living the Dream by Lauren Berry

Being a grownup is hard. When our older two children went off to college, we told them that we didn't expect them to know what they wanted to do with their lives at 18. As the oldest moves into the real world, we still don't expect him to know where his path is. Obviously his first job (yay for a fully employed kid!) is the first step on his path but there's no reason to expect that he knows with any certainty where that path will ultimately lead. Even people who have long had a very good idea of what they want to do (child #2 here) don't know how the path will get them where they want to go. And it's the stops along the way to a goal that shape a person, that make them who they are, and if they're lucky, turn them into adults. Lauren Berry's novel, Living the Dream, entertainingly details the life detour main character Emma has to make as she works toward her ultimate goal of being a writer.

Emma works at an advertising agency where she is quite good at her job as a "creative" but is often unrecognized and certainly underpaid and unfulfilled. What she really wants is to be a writer. From her best friend Clementine's perspective, Emma's life looks pretty good as after a year abroad doing an intensive and well-respected but very expensive graduate program, Clem has had to move back into her mother's house and work as a bartender while she waits impatiently to be discovered as the talented screenwriter she is. Neither Em nor Clem envisioned her adult life looking the way it is and both feel stuck waiting for their dreams to come true.

This is a funny and delightful look at the lives of young women in London figuring themselves and their lives out. Emma is struggling personally and professionally, her one glimmer of professional happiness being in the blog she writes on the side, her outlet for truth. Otherwise she is swamped in the tediousness of office life and in feeling like a sellout helping advertise companies in whom she doesn't believe. Clem doesn't want to sell out to the corporate world but she isn't moving forward any faster than Emma and she's always broke to boot. Both Em and Clem want to find happiness and fulfillment, which they try to do through a lot of boozy nights out, dating disasters, and kvetching to each other and their assorted friends but it takes actual movement and risk for anything to actually change in their lives.

Berry has written a terrifically entertaining novel about launching into adulthood, chasing dreams, and finding yourself. Emma is a complete delight and the cast of secondary characters around her are compelling and real feeling.  Clem is billed as a second main character but she really plays second fiddle to Emma in the novel.  There is certainly a lot of true to life angst here but the humor balances it out nicely so the reader never feels as if she's wallowing with the characters. As a mother of young adults, this novel does make me sad to think so many newly minted grownups are so unhappy and stuck in their lives, but it also gives me hope that finding the right path will happen, things will look brighter, and not everything along the way will be terrible. This quirky coming of age novel should appeal to others who remember their twenties with a shudder and a sigh of relief that they are through that fraught time and by those living through it who want to see themselves in these fun-loving but scared to make a move reflections of themselves.

Thanks to LibraryThing Early Reviewers and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book to review.

Review: Congratulations, Who Are You Again? by Harrison Scott Key

If you ever write anything that you share with others, people will likely tell you that you should write a book or you should get whatever snippet they've read published. But people generally have no concept of what writing a book (never mind the quality), getting it to a publishable state, and then, miracle of miracles, getting it traditionally published actually takes. It's not easy. And it can take years. If it ever happens at all. Harrison Scott Key's humorous memoir Congratulations, Who Are You Again? details the long and complicated journey he took to being a published author and while his experience is his alone, it is also universal enough to serve as a cautionary tale for those who think that writing a book is their ticket to fame and riches. Writing is a calling, publishing is simply a happy (read not guaranteed) outcome for that calling.

Key's first memoir, The World's Largest Man, focuses on his relationship with his father. It won The Thurber Prize for American Humor. So readers might be forgiven for thinking that Key had it all figured out as an author. This, his second memoir, shows just how hard he worked on that book to make it funny, to make it appear effortless, and even to get it down on the page in the first place. He knows that his first book has not only been published but has been successful by many measures as he's writing this one but he doesn't hesitate to pull back the curtain and really detail the grueling process, including harboring a long held dream that often felt out of reach or unrealistic, eleven years of writing around the other important things in his life (family, job, etc.), and the inside view of getting a book published including the marketing and touring, readings and interviews after the book comes out. Key is open and honest about his journey but also delightfully self-deprecating as he presents the highs and lows. He shares things about his personal process and about his private life, the highs and lows. He is a talented writer, truly able to make a reader laugh in places, often just as his numerous setbacks threaten to overwhelm and he balances both struggle and hope carefully. This is a testament to chasing a dream, nurturing it and cursing it but ultimately staying true to it. Key may not be a famous author, not immediately recognizable or a household name, but he's been successful at this difficult thing called writing for sure. Recommended for budding authors and those who are interested in an inside view of the publishing world from the author's perspective.

Thanks to LibraryThing Early Reviewers and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Review: Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

Depression is a beast. It robs people of so much. But there's a stigma associated with it that keeps people from seeking treatment and getting the help they need to even have a chance to come through to the other side of it. Having people who have suffered publicly admit to their struggles without shame and offer hope is huge. Matt Haig's memoir Reasons to Stay Alive is without a doubt a raw, personal account of his battle with severe depression that helps to add to the conversation about this debilitating disease.

When Haig was in his early twenties, he descended into the fugue of severe depression. He describes the crippling effects on his life as he endured both depression and anxiety for years. He lets the reader see into the deepest, darkest hole he found himself living in, telling of his own experiences, giving facts about the black dog of depression, and offering glimpses of how he found reasons to stay alive even in the bleakest of his moments. Medication didn't work for Haig so there's not much information about how helpful they can be to those suffering and in fact Haig is rather skeptical of the efficacy of drugs given his own experience but he does appreciate the ongoing and unwavering support of his girlfriend (now wife) and his family during this horrible time in his life.

The memoir itself is short but powerful. It is a bit of a pastiche, having chapters of straight narrative, chapters where Haig addresses his suffering past self, lists, and more. It is honest, emotional, and ultimately hopeful. The memoir doesn't give any easy answers to his fellow sufferers but perhaps those with severe depression will see something of themselves in it and in seeing themselves, will find a way, like Haig did, to fight against this terrible, living nightmare.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

The Sisters of Summit Avenue by Lynn Cullen.

The book is being released by Gallery Books on September 10, 2019.

The book's jacket copy says: From Lynn Cullen, the bestselling author of Mrs. Poe and Twain’s End, comes a powerful novel set in the Midwest during the Great Depression, about two sisters bound together by love, duty, and pain.

Ruth has been single-handedly raising four young daughters and running her family’s Indiana farm for eight long years, ever since her husband, John, fell into a comatose state, infected by the infamous “sleeping sickness” devastating families across the country. If only she could trade places with her older sister, June, who is the envy of everyone she meets: blonde and beautiful, married to a wealthy doctor, living in a mansion in St. Paul. And June has a coveted job, too, as one of “the Bettys,” the perky recipe developers who populate General Mills’ famous Betty Crocker test kitchens. But these gilded trappings hide sorrows: she has borne no children. And the man she used to love more than anything belongs to Ruth.

When the two sisters reluctantly reunite after a long estrangement, June’s bitterness about her sister’s betrayal sets into motion a confrontation that’s been years in the making. And their mother, Dorothy, who’s brought the two of them together, has her own dark secrets, which might blow up the fragile peace she hopes to restore between her daughters.

An emotional journey of redemption, inner strength, and the ties that bind families together, for better or worse, The Sisters of Summit Avenue is a heartfelt love letter to mothers, daughters, and sisters everywhere.