Summer is here! We enjoyed a night out by the fire pit Monday night with s’mores and it definitely made it feel like summer had kicked off! We haven’t seen cicadas in our yard yet, but our strawberry plants have given us more than 4 pounds of strawberries already. I’m looking forward to having some time off from homeschooling and spending more time reading on the back deck. Here is what I read in May:
Laura is floundering in life after a bad breakup takes her off track in Winter’s Rest. Instead of finding a job as a sports therapist, she is working part-time at a tourist ski shop and giving ski lessons to children. Instead of chasing her dream, she is letting life happen to her. After giving love another chance and having it thrown in her face, she finally sees what she can do to take back control of her life. The book moves a bit slowly and gives points-of-view of characters that are very minor to the story, but the journey Laura travels reminds the readers that dreams are never completely out of reach.
Two years after her husband’s death during a deployment, Amanda has decided to raise her children near the beach in a cottage in North Carolina in The Shell Collector. Her mother wanted her to come home to Ohio, but Amanda feels drawn to follow the dream she and her husband had for their children. While getting settled in, Amanda has to change her plans of starting an herbal salt business to teaching. However, she tries to focus on the children who keep her busy to keep going day after day. Then, a day at the beach changes their lives forever.
Almost everywhere you turn, you hear a story about someone or some group being offended by something someone did or said. How did our society get to this point? The authors of The Coddling of the American Mind look at studies and current events to evaluate how we got here and what could possibly be done about it. A lot of the responsibility rests on parents and how they are bringing up their children. The book made me think, even though there are parts of the book I don’t agree with completely. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to better understand our society.
Nancy is an Australian living in France as a freelance reporter. Swept off her feet by Henri, they are married as the Germans start coming into France. While her husband is at war, Nancy can’t sit by and do nothing. She first goes to the front to drive an ambulance, but then gets involved in smuggling documents. Her connections and skills lead her to more dangerous work and after her husband comes home, she becomes a spy in Code Name Helene.
Warned by a family friend that the Nazis are coming to round up 20,000 French Jews, Eva wakes in fear when there is a knock on her parents’ door. They didn’t want to leave. It turns out to be a neighbor who needs help watching her children. Eva and her mother go stay but while they are sleeping, Eva’s father is taken by the French police. When Eva seeks help from her father’s boss, all he offers is papers that she can forge so they can get to Switzerland. She works for hours creating the perfect papers, using her artistic skills. Her mother doesn’t want to leave, expecting her husband to come back, but Eva makes her go in The Book of Lost Names.
Twins Desiree and Stella disappear from their town one night when they are teens. The people of Mallard fear the worst, but it turns out they have just run away to New Orleans to escape small-town life. Mallard is a place where light-skinned African-Americans had decided to only marry no one darker than themselves. After a few years on their own, Stella leaves Desiree with no word about where she went. Stella had passed herself as Caucasian for a job and needed to keep up her pretense. Decades later, Stella and Desiree’s daughters cross paths and Stella’s secrets start to unravel. The Vanishing Half is interesting and thought-provoking. We should all be more than just a skin color.
The Hollows and The Stills by Jess Montgomery (Kinship Series books 2 & 3)
In The Hollows, Sheriff Lily Ross is up for re-election after taking on her husband’s job after his death. However, right before the election, a woman is found dead by the “haunted” train tunnel in her jurisdiction. In The Stills, Montgomery focuses on how Prohibition affected those in Lily’s life. An acquaintance of hers, Fiona, is now married to the biggest good and bootlegger around, George Vogel. Fiona finds herself pregnant and realized she needs a plan to get out of the control of her husband.
In The Four Winds, Elsa is out of place in her own family. After getting Scarlett fever at 14, the doctor told her she could never exert herself, so her family treated her with kid gloves. On top of that, she was too tall and skinny and “not pretty.” No one would marry her. So, one night, she runs out, determined to have a normal night, listening to music and enjoying the company of adults. She runs into a man who changes the entire course of her life, Rafe. A unplanned pregnancy forces her to marry him and join his family after being disowned by her own. In quick time, a bond is formed between Elsa and her mother-in-law that will never be broken. This was my favorite book this month!
What books did you read in May?
Share in the comments – I’m always looking for good books to add to my to-read pile!
