WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.
The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
Personal:
I hope you all had a wonderful week last week. Mine went ok. I started getting to the school at 2:30, and you know what? My anxiety dropped a ton. Plus, I was getting home by 3:30 instead of getting out of the parking lot at 3:30. Now, don’t get me talking about the parents who decided to walk in front of my car when I went around the side of the school.
Miss R had horseback riding last week (as she does every week). The lesson was fine, but when it came time to put the horse out to pasture, it was a cluster. The entrance to the mare’s pasture was muddy. I didn’t know that, and I almost lost one of my shoes….haha. Miss R went into the pasture to let the horse out (she needed to take off the halter) and sank to her knees. We were a sight. Thankfully, the mud washed off, and Miss R got a big laugh about it.
I have some sad news on Miss B’s front. She got kicked out of the dual college/high school program because she didn’t have a 2.0 average. Per her, she got overwhelmed and burnt out. I was a little ticked off by how they told her. When, you ask? She got an email sent to her early morning on January 5th, and her classes were changed before 8:30 am. When I talked to the guidance counselor (damn skippy, I did, Miss B was hysterical), she was just as pissed as I was. She told me that Miss B wasn’t even on the list of names sent over on January 4th, and the change was made after school hours. But there is a silver lining. She’s enjoying the classes she’s in now (personal finance, math 3, honor English 11, and creative writing) and is looking forward to raising her GPA and being less stressed.
We ended up moving Mr. Z and Miss B’s bedrooms on Sunday. We decided to move the bedrooms because Mr. Z was keeping Miss R up while talking to his D&D buddies online. Plus, she didn’t like his door closed and walked into a couple of embarrassing situations. This new setup is working out fine. Plus, our cats are loving it. Snickers now have free roam of Miss B’s room (including the bed), and they all go in there to lie in the afternoon sun. So a win-win.
Reading:
So, remember when I said I would catch up on reviews this weekend? Well, it didn’t happen. I got busy. Now, I am playing catch-up with reviews….sigh. Right now, I am behind by five reviews. To catch up, I will be writing reviews in the afternoon/at night until I am caught up. That is tricky because my kids have a sixth sense of when I am doing something, so keep your fingers crossed.
The longest book I read this week: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries. This book started off so slow and didn’t get going until (and this is a guess) about 60-75% into the book. Once it picked up speed, I could read it rather quickly. But it took me three days to get through the first 60% of the book.
The shortest book I read this week: The Rom-Com Agenda. I finished it within a day.
How was your week? Read anything good? Did you do anything exciting?
As always, let me know if you have read or are planning to read any of these books!!
What I Recently Finished Reading:
Evil isn’t always learned…sometimes it’s IN OUR BLOOD.
Nearly thirty years ago, Detective Jake Hawksworth and best-selling author Drew McCauley were brought together by a horrific crime. Jake, still reeling from the unsolved hit-and-run death of his wife, and Drew will be reunited once again when a crime from Drew’s novel-in-the-making becomes a devastating reality. Is the kidnapping of Drew’s son somehow linked to the murder Jake is investigating? Was Jake’s wife’s death really an accident? And could the person who has haunted both men for decades be responsible for these seemingly unrelated events? As Jake races to protect Drew’s family, they find themselves on a collision course with fate – derailed by a series of breakneck twists and turns that culminates at an isolated, snow-ravaged house. It is here that long-buried secrets are unearthed and Jake realizes, to his horror, that his hunches are not always right. That the keys to solving his wife’s death and a heinous, decades-old crime have been under his nose all along.
What I am currently reading:
What would you change if you could go back in time?
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.
In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.
But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .
Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?
What books I think I’ll read next:
Armed with only hazy memories, a woman who long ago witnessed her friend’s sudden, mysterious death, and has since spent her life trying to forget, sets out to track down answers. What she uncovers, deep in the woods, is hardly to be believed….
Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they’d been spending time with all summer.
Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can’t account for. But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Plunged into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer–the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey.
At her mother’s house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father’s book that didn’t stand out to her earlier. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born, but time keeps running out, and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank’s cabin….
Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home.
Silver Wade has never been one to back down from a fight. Facing off against an organization imprisoning those with psychic abilities has become the biggest challenge of her life. The fact she’s also a shapeshifter would make her a unique specimen in their collection.
New to the world of spies and terrorism, she and her sister cross paths with three teens fighting to stay ahead of skilled assassins, intent on their demise.
Dacien McGreggor is well known among his peers for his calm demeanor in times of stress. When ex-detective Silver Wade crosses his path, his worldview is challenged.
Each member of the team is paired with another according to their psychic ability. Dacien and Silver must set aside their differences and work together in order to survive.
She’s an outsider desperate to belong, but the cost of entry might be her darkest secret in this intoxicating debut of literary suspense following a clique of dangerously ambitious students at the University of Edinburgh.
Edinburgh, Scotland: a moody city of labyrinthine alleyways, oppressive fog, and buried history; the ultimate destination for someone with something to hide. Perfect for Clare, then, who arrives utterly alone and yearning to reinvent herself. And what better place to conceal the dark secrets in her past than at the university in the heart of the fabled, cobblestoned Old Town?
When Clare meets Tabitha, a charismatic, beautiful, and intimidatingly rich girl from her art history class, she knows she’s destined to be friends with her and her exclusive circle: raffish Samuel; shrewd Ava; and pragmatic Imogen. Clare is immediately drawn into their libertine world of sophisticated dinner parties and summers in France. The new life she always envisioned for herself has seemingly begun.
And then Tabitha reveals a little project she’s been working on, one that she needs Clare’s help with. Even though it goes against everything Clare has tried to repent for. Even though their intimacy begins to darken into codependence. But as Clare starts to realize just what her friends are capable of, it’s already too late. Because they’ve taken the plunge. They’re so close to attaining the things they want. And there’s no going back.
What is the cost of an extraordinary life if others have to pay? Reimagining the classic themes of obsession and striving with an original and sinister edge, The Things We Do to Our Friends is a seductive thriller about the toxic battle between those who have, and those who covet–between the desire to truly belong, and the danger of being truly known.
A FISHERMAN’S DAUGHTER
Miss Poppy Summers is determined to keep her family’s fishing business afloat. Her poor widowed father has fallen ill, and her foolhardy brother has moved to London, leaving her precious little time to read or pursue her own dreams. But she’ll do anything for her family, so she cheerfully spends mornings in her rowboat, casting her nets. The very last thing Poppy expects or wants to find tangled in them is a dangerously attractive man. Especially one with a head wound—who’s convinced he’s a duke.
AND A DUKE OUT OF WATER
Andrew Keane is the Duke of Hawking, but he’s having the devil of a time convincing his fiery-haired rescuer of that fact. The truth is he came to the seaside resort of Bellehaven Bay to escape his life in London. Unfortunately, someone in Bellehaven wants to kill him—and he intends to find out who. He implores Poppy to tend to his injuries and hide him on her beach, reasoning it will be easier to find his attacker if that man assumes Keane is already dead. She wants no part of the scheme but can’t refuse the generous sum he offers in exchange for food and shelter while he recovers. It’s a mutually beneficial business arrangement…nothing more.
ARE ABOUT TO MAKE WAVES
Under Poppy’s care, Keane regains his strength—and a sense of purpose. As they work together to solve the puzzle of his would-be murderer, he’s dazzled by her rapier wit and adventurous spirit; she’s intrigued by his mysterious air and protective streak. Though Poppy’s past gives her every reason to mistrust someone like Keane, the seawalls around her heart crumble in the storm of their passion. But when clues hint at the prime suspect in Keane’s attempted murder, Poppy must decide where her loyalties lie. Torn between the world she’s always known and the one she’s always dreamed of, she’ll need true love for a shot at her fairytale ending.