Sharing the Stories

May was a month for mystery reading, unintentionally, I ended with 7 mysteries and one Greek Mythology story.   The Paris Apartment by  Lucy Foley- audiobook courtesy of Hoopla.  Jess needs her brother, Ben, the one person she can turn to when things get hard. Arriving in Paris she finds Ben gone. He seems to have just vanished leaving behind everything. Slowly Jess starts to put together that the residents of his gated apartment have the answers to his disappearance.  Great plot twists and turns, interconnected characters, and fast-paced.  The It Girl by Ruth Ware   is   a back-and-forth between present and past. College friends are turned apart when one of them is murdered. The testimony that convicts John Neville has left Hannah with more questions than answers. Could he truly have killed April? And if he didn't do it, then who?  Surprising ending. Purchased at the Literary Indie bookstore.  The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane   cou...

  April showers brought an abundance of books. The perfect balance of physical books to audiobooks, non-fiction & graphic novels to love stories, and good mysteries.  Most of my physical books were from my public and school libraries and a few Indie bookstore purchases. My audiobooks were courtesy of Sora and Libro.fm . You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith was actually an author event at Women & Children First . This rare memoir in prose from a poet proved to be insightful, and moving, with raw grief and hope for transformation.  The Lost Art of Running by Shane Benzie was another Indie bookstore purchase after completing a race. Shane's approach brings a technical/informative perspective to the art of running while incorporating a narrative of his own experiences. The Weight of Blood by Tiffany Jackson- Lincoln Award Nominee 2024- from one of my favorite authors. This mystery/horror with deadly consequences, in a town divided by a racial conflic...

February was a month full of international mysteries. All my audiobooks, courtesy of Libro.fm and Libby were excellent mysteries. And almost by accident, all my  paper books were mysteries as well, with the exception of Kindred by Octavia E. Butler a time travel sci-fi tale that was capturing and thought-provoking.  I continued Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series with #2 The Likeness  and #3 Faithful Place . Each book gives the reader an in-depth perspective on a detective introduced in the previous books. While you could read them out of order it helps to better understand the characters to go in sequence. Each book revolves around one main mystery/murder but there are so many underlying stories to shape the main character's experiences, personalities, motives, and behaviors.   Nick Brooks's first novel Promise Boys is a mystery set in a private school run more like a military academy. Our main characters find themselves in detention with no alibi when the...

  “Because for every way the world tries to kill us, it gives us a way to survive. You just gotta find it” (p. 24.)   Cash certainly knows about  “the world trying to kill you” or at least hurt you. His whole life has felt like one loss after another, one hurtful moment after another. But he has found a way to survive, a way to have hope, and even small moments of joy with the good in his life. His Papaw and Mamaw, who stepped in and are helping raise him, Delaney “Red” his only friend and local genius, their quiet little Tennessee town, the river, and the moments sharing stories on their front porch.   When life doesn’t give you many opportunities you must take the ones that are offered to you. Even if you don’t think you deserve them.  So when Delaney discovers a rare form of penicillium that gets them both full rides at an elite boarding school, Cash will have to decide to leave his safe place in order to become the person he’s supposed to be.  This...