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 Heart Principle by Helen Hoang.

The book is being released by Berkley on August 31, 2021.

The book's jacket copy says: When violinist Anna Sun accidentally achieves career success with a viral YouTube video, she finds herself incapacitated and burned out from her attempts to replicate that moment. And when her longtime boyfriend announces he wants an open relationship before making a final commitment, a hurt and angry Anna decides that if he wants an open relationship, then she does, too. Translation: She's going to embark on a string of one-night stands. The more unacceptable the men, the better.

That’s where tattooed, motorcycle-riding Quan Diep comes in. Their first attempt at a one-night stand fails, as does their second, and their third, because being with Quan is more than sex—he accepts Anna on an unconditional level that she herself has just started to understand. However, when tragedy strikes Anna’s family she takes on a role that she is ill-suited for, until the burden of expectations threatens to destroy her. Anna and Quan have to fight for their chance at love, but to do that, they also have to fight for themselves.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Obviously it's been more than a minute since I posted for this! This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed over the past week are:

Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed
Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne
Plutocracy by Abraham Martinez
Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen
The Secret, Book and Scone Society by Ellery Adams
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
The Earl Not Taken by A. S. Fenichel
The Stone Sister by Carolyn Patterson
The Colour of God by Ayesha S. Chaudhry
Hell of a Book by Jason Mott
The Baddest Girl on the Planet by Heather Frese
A Recipe for Daphne by Nektaria Anastasiadou< br /> The Portrait by Ilaria Bernardini
No Names to be Given by Julia Brewer Daily

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

The Boat Runner by Devin Murphy
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
Interior Chinatown by Cahrles Yu
The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey
House of Trelawney by Hannah Rothschild
In Love with George Eliot by Kathy O'Shaughnessy
We Learnt About Hitler at the Mickey Mouse Club by Enid Elliott Linder
The Restaurant Inspector by Alex Pickett
Modern Jungles by Pao Lor
Miseducated by Brandon P. Fleming
A Trick of the Light by Ali Carter
The Truth and Other Hidden Things by Lea Geller
The Parted Earth by Anjali Enjeti
Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda
The Very Nice Box by Eve Gleichman and Laura Blackett
Waiting for the Night Song by Julie Carrick Dalton
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
The Hummingbird's Gift by Sy Montgomery

Reviews posted this week:

We Think the World of You by J.R. Ackerley
Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne
Willie Nelson bt T.J. Kirsch
No Names to be Given by Julia Brewer Daily

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

What You Wish For by Katherine Center
The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Initiates by Etienne Davodeau
You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle
The Arctic Fury by Greer MacAllister
Writers and Lovers by Lily King
Better Luck Next Time by Julia Claiborne Johnson
Austenistan edited by Laaleen Sukhera
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
Love Is Blind by Lynsay Sands
Saving Miss Oliver's by Stephen Davenport
Refining Felicity by M.C. Beaton
Queenie by Candace Carty-Williams
Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson
Sea Swept by Nora Roberts
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
More Confessions of a Trauma Junkie by Sherry Lynn Jones
Inlaws and Outlaws by Kate Fulford
The Belinda Chronicles by Linda Seidel
Jane in Love by Rachel Givney
Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau
The Wind Blows and the Flowers Dance by Terre Reed
Lovely War by Julie Berry
A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole
Dear County Agent Guy by Jerru Nelson
This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear
The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict
All Adults Here by Emma Straub
Nice Girls Finish First by Alesia Holliday
Cosmogony by Lucy Ives
Heartwood by Barbara Becker
My Own Miraculous by Joshilyn Jackson
Duchess If You Dare by Anabelle Bryant
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
After Francesco by Brian Malloy
When the Apricots Bloom by Gina Wilkinson
Assembly by Natasha Brown
The Walls Came Tumbling Down by Henriette Roosenburg
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
Silence by William Carpenter
The Ghost Dancers by Adrian C. Louis
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Brother Sister Mother Explorer by Jamie Figueroa
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump
One Night Two Souls Went Walking by Ellen Cooney
The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams
Other People's Children by R. J. Hoffmann
Inheritors by Asako Serizawa
Why Birds Sing by Nina Berkhout
When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson-Brown
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G. Parry
The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin
Love in Color by Bolu Babalola
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed
Plutocracy by Abraham Martinez
Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen
The Secret, Book and Scone Society by Ellery Adams
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
The Earl Not Taken by A. S. Fenichel
The Stone Sister by Carolyn Patterson
The Colour of God by Ayesha S. Chaudhry
Hell of a Book by Jason Mott
The Baddest Girl on the Planet by Heather Frese
A Recipe for Daphne by Nektaria Anastasiadou< br /> The Portrait by Ilaria Bernardini

Review: No Names to be Given by Julia Brewer Daily

There are probably as many reasons for women to give their babies up for adoption as there are adopted children in the world. In the 1960s, with very few choices, unmarried young women, often quite young, could be sent off to a maternity hospital where they would live for months, give birth, and then relinquish their baby with no hope of ever seeing that child again. Then they'd be expected to resume their previous life as if nothing had happened to change them forever. Julia Brewer Daily, an adoptee herself, has written a story about three young women put in this impossible position in her novel No Names to be Given.

Sandy, Becca, and Faith meet as roommates at the Magnolia Home Hospital in New Orleans. They are three very different young women but all are unmarried and pregnant. They all give birth on the same day as the book opens, then jumping back in time to tell each of their stories and how they all ended up in a maternity hospital. Sandy, a talented exotic dancer, had an affair with a married mobster. Becca, a Southern debutante with an activist streak, went to college and fell in love with a black man. Faith, the innocent daughter of a famous evangelical preacher, was raped by a family friend, an employee of her father's. Their shared experience of having and giving up their babies marked them forever even if they had to keep those babies' existences a secret.

The novel is divided into three different sections: the young women's lives leading up to their pregnancies, the years when they go on with their lives always knowing that their children are somewhere out there, and the near present when they face blackmail and the potentially devastating revelation of their long held secrets. The chapters alternate between the three women and then later on include chapters focused on the children they gave up. Daily has done a good job showing the lasting impacts of adoption on both mothers and children, and the way that that impact can differ so widely depending on personality and circumstance. She touches on the different lives the children could go on to live--in loving homes, in foster homes, with the adopted child being considered an outsider, or neglected. She shows how the mothers are forever haunted by their children, even when their lives go on in successful ways. She also gives a hint of the way that commercial DNA tests have upended and exposed family secrets. There were several plot points that were too convenient and unbelievable. The story moved at a slow but steady pace for most of the novel but sped up to a shocking climax quite late in the book making the pacing a bit uneven. She raises the issues of abuse and racism but keeps both of these secondary to the adoption thread. What Daily captures beautifully was how the children given up for adoption were seemingly unacknowledged but, in truth, for the mothers, unspoken never meant forgotten. This is a book with heart, a look into the ways that shame and social mores dictated so many lives, and truth behind adoption in the 60s.

For more information about Julia Brewer Daily and the book, check our her author site, follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, look at the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, look at the reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book, and purchase here.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and publisher Admission Press for sending me a copy of this book to review.

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 Royals Next Door by Karina Halle.

The book is being released by Berkley on August 31, 2021.

The book's jacket copy says: An ordinary summer goes royally awry when a prince and princess move next door, bringing their handsome bodyguard with them, from New York Times bestselling author Karina Halle.

Piper Evans: elementary school teacher by day--avid romance reader and anonymous podcaster by night. She has a quiet, reclusive life, taking care of her mother, who lives with mental illness, avoiding her regrettable ex, who bartends in town, and trying to make inroads in the tight-knit island community that still sees her, five years in, as an outsider.

And she's happy with how things are--really--until British royals rent the property next to hers and their brooding bodyguard decides she's a security threat. Piper quickly realizes that one person's fairy tale is an ordinary woman's nightmare as a media frenzy takes over the island and each run-in with Harrison Cole is hotter and more confusing than the last. But beneath Harrison's no-nonsense exterior lies a soft heart, one that could tempt a woman who's sworn off attachments into believing in white knights.

But when Piper finds herself smack in the middle of a royal scandal that rocks the island she'll need more than Harrison's strong arms to shield her--she'll have to do a little rescuing herself. With careers, hearts, and friendships on the line, Piper and Harrison will have to decide what they're willing to give up for a chance at their own happily ever after.

Review: Willie Nelson: A Graphic History by T. J. Kirsch

Willie Nelson is one of the most recognizable names and faces (or perhaps I should say braids) in all of country music. This graphic history illustrates the major pieces of his life, his music, his family, his marriages and divorces, the highs and the lows so far. It gives readers visuals for some of the inspiration behind his hits as well as a glimpse into what has made the man. Each of the seven chapters is illustrated by a different comic artist so the book has a multitude of styles to it. This can cause a lack of continuity and some confusion visually, especially when certain people instrumental in Nelson's life are drawn so very differently. The written biography is fairly superficial and simple so many fans will already know the outline of the information here. Nelson is undoubtedly a legendary singer songwriter so although basic, this is a decent and creatively done introduction to the man behind the music.

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 Show Girl by Nicola Harrison.

The book is being released by St. Martin's Press on August 10, 2021.

The book's jacket copy says: Nicola Harrison's The Show Girl gives a glimpse of the glamorous world of the Ziegfeld Follies, through the eyes of a young midwestern woman who comes to New York City to find her destiny as a Ziegfeld Follies star.

It's 1927 when Olive McCormick moves from Minneapolis to New York City determined to become a star in the Ziegfeld Follies. Extremely talented as a singer and dancer, it takes every bit of perseverance to finally make it on stage. And once she does, all the glamour and excitement is everything she imagined and more—even worth all the sacrifices she has had to make along the way.

Then she meets Archie Carmichael. Handsome, wealthy—the only man she's ever met who seems to accept her modern ways—her independent nature and passion for success. But once she accepts his proposal of marriage he starts to change his tune, and Olive must decide if she is willing to reveal a devastating secret and sacrifice the life she loves for the man she loves.