What I Read in August & Share Your Shelf #5

 Marilyn, Jennifer, Tanya, and I are enjoying this monthly link up (that goes live on the first Thursday of every month) that is dedicated solely to books and book reviews. I hope you'll join us.  

I read/listened to 13 books this month. I'm still clinging to summer so I'm still picking up and pulling out some summer books but slowly I find that I'm turning to my typical fall reads of cozy murder mysteries. 

1. The Girls of Mischief Bay by Susan Mallery (Mischief Bay book 1)-- Definitely a slow paced book but such a sweet book of friendship. 3 ladies who met at yoga class and have very little in common are great friends but this year all 3 are struggling. Pam can't believe she's 50 and seeing so many signs of aging and nearly loses it when she finds out she's going to be a grandmother. Then her life takes an unexpected turn and she relies on her 2 friends to see her through. Nicole is running her own business and juggling her 5 year old son as well as all the household chores since her husband unexpectedly quit his job to write a screenplay and is "to busy" to help. Shannon is a CFO of a large company and has been trying so hard to find a man that isn't intimidated by her job or her hours to spend her life with. She'd love a husband and a baby but is starting to think those opportunities have passed her by. 

2. You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao-- Julie is struggling after the loss of Sam. Desperate to hear his voice Julie calls Sam's phone hoping to hear his recorded message but the strangest thing happens-- Sam answers. The two continue calling and connecting over time though neither can explain how it's happening and both are aware that Sam has died. I honestly don't know if I would have listened to the book if I realized the premise of the story ahead of time but I ended up really liking it even knowing there was no way there would be a happy ending. 

3. The Friends We Keep by Susan Mallery (Mischief Bay book 2)-- Continuing on with Nicole's story from the first book (I don't want to say too much and give away the plot twists of the first book) but Nicole's son is obsessed with a children's character called Brad the Dragon and they have a chance to meet the author in person. Nicole is less than thrilled having read an article about how B the D's author is only interested in money from his empire. 2 other side characters from the first book make up the rest of the storyline. Gabby is so excited to back to work part time after her twin 5 year old daughters are finally starting school but her plans don't flesh out the way she thought and she finds herself fighting for her right to have a life of her own outside being a a mother and a wife. Hayley has been trying for years to get and stay pregnant but miscarriage after miscarriage finds her at a dead end filled with grief. These three women find their bonds of friendship deepening as they help one another through their various trials and successes. 

4. After You by Jojo Moyes-- The second book in the Me Before You series finds Lou struggling to move on. After falling off a building and getting some serious injuries her family makes her promise to attend grief counseling. That along with a long lost daughter of Will's that shows up on her doorsteps looking for answers about her father help Lou find just a bit of purpose again. 

5. The Little Italian Hotel by Pheadra Patrick-- Ginny is a radio talk show advice expert and she truly feels like her life is pretty perfect until the night she tries to surprise a husband with a fabulous anniversary trip to Italy only to be told that he wants a divorce. Reeling and unable to get her money back Ginny reaches out to her listeners and offers an trip to Italy for 4 of them dealing with grief. Eric, Curtis, Heather, and Edna all come. Heather's mother is failing due to dementia and Heather is struggling with guilt over having to put her in a home while grieving the loss of the woman she knew growing up. Edna has lost both her daughter and her husband, while Eric is grieving the loss of his best friend and dog and no one can figure out what is wrong with Curtis. The hotel they stay at is struggling to stay afloat but Nico, the owner, is willing to go the extra mile to make sure everyone has a pleasant stay. Over the course of the weeks the cast grows closer together and try to help one another. It was a sweet and heart-warming story. 

6. Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez-- Oh I just LOVED this book! Emma is a travelling nurse, her and her best friend/foster sister Maddy take turns picking their next assignment but when Emma "meets" Justin online she talks Maddy into heading to Minnesota next so Emma and Justin can date just for the summer. Both Justin and Emma have discovered that they're cursed; every person they date tends to find their happily ever after with the very next person they meet. Justin convinces Emma that they if they date and break up then they can break each other's curses. Only problem is that once Justin sees Emma he doesn't want to let her go but his life is about to get very complicated when he takes on custody of his 3 younger siblings. It was a really sweet story with a fun cast of characters. 

7. The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley-- I just love when a Libby app book has a full cast of characters and this was a fun listen. Opening weekend of a brand new luxury resort called The Manor does not go quite as planned. With a rather large cast of characters who all are not quite what they seem and hiding secrets of their own there are actually a few crimes to solve; who was murdered and why? How did the The Manor burn down? 

8. The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center-- I love a good rom-com and this book truly felt like a perfect one! Emma has always wanted to be a screen-writer and while she tries to find time to write it's hard while taking care of her father full time. When her agent/ ex-boyfriend calls and convinces her to fly to L.A to help screen-writer Charles Yates rewrite his deplorable rom-com. Only the ultra famous Charles Yates doesn't want any help, he really doesn't want to be writing a rom-com, and he doesn't believe in love at all. Emma has her job cut out for her and while she nearly quits a time or two once the two come up with a mutual agreement they find that they actually work quite well together... perhaps a bit too well! 

9. A Happier Life by Kristy Woodson Harvey-- I thought this story was cute and sweet and had enough intrigue to keep me interested.  Keaton's mother and uncle convince her to head to Beaufort, North Carolina to put the family home on the market; no one has stepped foot inside since Keaton's grandparents died more than 50 years ago. No one really knows what happened to Keaton's grandparents and their disappearance has become something of a town mystery as well as just a family one. Keaton find that she's enjoying getting to know her grandparents through their old journals and belongings. She's surprised to find herself fitting into small town life rather well. She makes friends with her next door neighbor and his son as well as a few local ladies who all sort of take Keaton under their wings having fond memories of her grandmother. By the end of the summer Keaton and her family finally crack the mystery of what happened to her grandparents and Keaton's future looks very different from the one she had planned for herself at the start of the summer. 

10. Still Me by Jojo Moyes--  Lou accepts a job in New York acting as a caretaker for a rich New York high society family. But she's really struggling to feel at home among the high society New York scene and finds that keeping up along distance relationship is so much harder than she thought it would be. Her work for the Gopnik family as his wife's Agnus' aide seems oddly changeable from one moment to the next. Sometimes Lou is treated like a friend and introduced as one too and other times she most definitely feels like a servant. 

11. The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams-- Nathan and Bree are best friends... each wants more but is so afraid to be the one to actually say that out loud and ruin a perfectly perfect friendship. It was a delightful and light story that I just loved and read through in less than a weekend. 

12. The Briar Club by Kate Quinn-- I typically LOVE Kate Quinn's books but this one just felt kind of meh to me. I don't know if it's because I was listening to it on my Libby app and had a hard time keeping the cast of characters straight or if it was because the story didn't appear to be told from any clear point of view (and at times was told from the house's point of view). I'm sure it didn't help that I was trying to listen during the week we were moving Alec into college and I was really distracted. Anyway, the story is about a group of women living in a boarding house in Washington DC in 1950. Grace March moves into the house and pulls the women together through her weekly dinners. The story starts out with a murder and then alternates back in time to give the back story of each person living in the house and to the night of the murder untangling what happened. It was good just not my favorite Kate Quinn novel. 

13. Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams--  Another book that I enjoyed. It actually took me nearly a week to read which is practically unheard of for me-- but again I was reading while dealing with Alec/college stuff/moving/ etc. so I was distracted. This book is two completely different stories-- Mallory is a single mom raising her son, searching for a kidney doner, while getting him to dialysis appointments regularly. Her sister wants her to contact the long lost father but he's a famous musician and Mallory has never even told him they have a son. Hannah is a married woman living in Egypt in the 1950's. She ends up having an affair hoping to get pregnant because her husband is unable to father children. I enjoyed both stories enough that I'd get annoyed when they switched because I wanted to keep reading about each individual story but I was disappointed not to learn more about the historical time period that Hannah was living in and what was going on in the world at the time. Eventually the two stories intersect and I did enjoy the ending. 

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