I saw this meme on It’s All About Booksand thought, I like this!! So, I decided to do it once a month also. Many thanks to Yvonne for initially posting this!!
This post is what it says: Places I travel to in books each month. Books are lovely and take you to places you would never get to. That includes places of fantasy too!!
Bon Voyage!!
Please let me know if you have read these books or traveled to these areas.
Countries I visited the most:United States, England, Scotland
States I visited the most:New York, California, Washington, Montana, Georgia, Oregon
Cities I visited the most: Los Angeles, Seattle, London, Malibu
United States
New York (Burning Lake)Washington (Bainbridge Island, Seattle, Richland), Colorado (Golden, Denver), Washington D.C., Wyoming (YellowstoneNational Park, Mayoworth, Wright), Montana (West Yellowstone Village), Oregon (Portland), South Dakota (Watertown), California (Los Angeles), Arizona (Phoenix), Montana (Glasgow, Fort Peck, Boyd), Georgia (Atlanta)New York (Brooklyn), Illinois (Chicago), New Jersey (Secaucus)New York (Belmont Park), Massachusetts (Cambridge)Pennsylvania (Harrisburg), Maryland (Baltimore)Maine (Mistletoe)Connecticut (Clover Ridge)New York (New York City)Alaska (Ryba Harbor)Florida (Daytona Beach)Colonial Massachusetts (Hinkapee, North Hinkapee)Idaho, Utah (Bliss)California (Malibu, Laguna, Los Angeles), Hawaii (Makaha)Unknown State (East Kent, Samhattan)Washington (Seattle)Montana (Big Sky), Washington (Anacortes), California (Los Angeles)Georgia (Savannah)Wisconsin (Milwaukee)Oregon (Bandon)GeorgiaCaliforniaTexas (Pleasance)Ohio (Dayton), California (Los Angeles, Malibu, Santa Barbara)
Buzzword Reading Challenge 2023 (body-related words: the body itself or body-related works like heart, skin, liver, flesh…etc)—Broken Heart Syndrome
2023 Sami Parker Reads Title Challenge (a book with a wild animal in the title. Common companion animals like dogs, cats, ferrets, fish, snakes, lizards, and horses do not count)—The Wolf Within
Two years together. Twenty years apart. One day to change their story.
2000. Benjamin’s world is turned upside down the night he meets Clara. Instinctively, he knows that they are meant for each other, but a devastating mistake on their last night at university will take their lives in very different directions.
20 years later, Clara has a high-profile job and a handsome husband. But despite the trappings of success, she isn’t happy, and she knows that a piece of her heart still belongs to Benjamin, the boy she fell in love with years earlier. The boy whose life she fears she ruined.
When a bombing is reported in the city where they first met, Clara is pulled back to a place she tries not to remember and the first love she could never forget. Searching for Benjamin, Clara is forced to confront the events that tore them apart. But is it too late to put right what went wrong?
Across the miles and spanning decades, Charlotte Rixon’s The One That Got Away is a sweeping, poignant story about growing up, growing apart, the people who first steal our hearts, and the surprising, winding roads that love can take us on, for readers of Jill Santopolo, Rosie Walsh, and Colleen Hoover.
First Line:
It’s a hotter day than anyone anticipated for April and he’s sweating, but not just because of the heat.
The One That Got Away by Charlotte Rixon
When Benjamin met Clara at university, he knew she was the one. But, two years into their relationship, they are forced apart by a horrible and devastating mistake. That mistake takes Clara and Benjamin in different directions. Fast forward twenty years later, Clara, a successful journalist in an unhappy marriage, is shocked to hear about a bombing in the city where she and Benjamin first met. Rushing to the city, Clara doesn’t know if he is dead, alive, or injured. Will Clara find Benjamin? What happened that night twenty years ago? And who is the bomber, and why did that person target the football (soccer for Americans) stadium?
When I read the blurb for The One That Got Away, I was mildly intrigued. I like books that span decades, and I also like when those books are recent with characters around my age. That is why I decided to accept the St. Martin’s Press widget. But now that I have read it, I am very unimpressed.
The One That Got Away is a medium-paced book that is set in the city of Newcastle in, England. The storyline for this book moved slowly. That slowness kept making me lose interest, and I had to force myself to keep reading.
The storyline of The One That Got Away is centered around Clara and Benjamin. This storyline was chaotic. It was a dual POV storyline (Clara and Benjamin). That is not what bothered me. The author did clearly label the chapters. What bothered me was that it ping-ponged back and forth in time. One chapter would be in the early 2000s, the next in 2023, then the 2010s, and so on. I couldn’t get a handle on anything happening.
I couldn’t stand Clara. When she was first introduced, I thought she was a little immature but chalked it up to her age. But, as the author continued with the book, I disliked her. She came across, even in her 40s, as immature and selfish. She constantly lied to herself, her friends, husband, and Benjamin. She ruined the book for me.
On the flip side, I liked Benjamin. He got the short end of the stick when it came to Clara. I also felt he was made so oblivious by love that he was willing to overlook her behavior. When the mistake happened, and Clara cut ties with him, I pitied him. But, in a way, his life turned out so much better than Clara’s. My only fault with him is that he didn’t push Aiden after the party, and something was clearly wrong.
This book’s storylines with Benjamin and Clara are so chaotic that I will notstart explaining or unraveling it. I found some more well-written than others. I also wish the mistake had been revealed sooner in the book instead of being talked about and around.
The bombing storyline was maybe the only straightforward one in the book, and it shocked me. I was wrong about who I thought it was. I also was heartbroken over why that person chose to do what they did. Looking back, it made sense. I just wished that Aiden had told someone sooner.
The end of The One That Got Away was a HEA. Clara was finally living her best life after cutting some dead weight out. I disagreed with the romantic angle, but hey, good for them. I also loved seeing how Aiden turned out!!
I would recommend The One That Got Away to anyone over 21. There is language, nongraphic sexual situations, and violence. There are references to childhood sexual abuse, alcoholism, child abandonment, cheating, and attempted rape.
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press, NetGalley, and Charlotte Rixon for allowing me to read and review The One That Got Away. All opinions stated in this review are mine.
If you enjoy reading books like The One That Got Away, then you will enjoy these books:
Here is what I am currently reading, recently finished, and plan to read from Thursday to Wednesday.
Let me know if you have read or are planning on reading any of these books!!
Happy Reading!!
What I am currently reading:
New York Times bestseller Allison Brennan’s latest standalone is an unputdownable race to the dramatic finish.
After five years in hiding from their murderous father, the day Kristen and Ryan McIntyre have been dreading has arrived: Boyd McIntyre, head of a Los Angeles crime family, has at last tracked his kids to a small Montana town and is minutes away from kidnapping them. They barely escape in a small plane, but gunfire hits the fuel line. The pilot, a man who has been raising them as his own, manages to crash land in the middle of the Montana wilderness. The siblings hike deep into the woods, searching desperately for safety—unaware of the severity of the approaching storm.
Boyd’s sister Ruby left Los Angeles for the Army years ago, cutting off contact in order to help keep her niece and nephew safe and free from the horrors of the McIntyre clan. So when she gets an emergency call that the plane has gone down with the kids inside, she drops everything to try save them.
As the storm builds, Ruby isn’t the only person looking for them. Boyd has hired an expert tracker to find and bring them home. And rancher Nick Lorenzo, who knows these mountains better than anyone and doesn’t understand why the kids are running, is on their trail too.
But there is a greater threat to Kristen and Ryan out there. More volatile than the incoming blizzard, more dangerous than the family they ran from or the natural predators they could encounter. Who finds them first could determine if they live or die. . .
What I recently finished reading:
Five harrowing novellas of horror and speculative fiction from the singular mind of the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box
Josh Malerman is a master weaver of stories–and in this spine-chilling collection he spins five twisted tales from the shadows of the human soul:
A sister insists to her little brother that “Half the House Is Haunted” by a strange presence. But is it the house that’s haunted–or their childhoods?
In “Argyle,” a dying man confesses to homicides he never committed, and he reveals long-kept secrets far more sinister than murder.
A tourist takes the ultimate trip to outer space in “The Jupiter Drop,” but the real journey is into his own dark past.
In “Doug and Judy Buy the House Washer(TM),” a trendy married couple buys the latest home gadget only to find themselves trapped by their possessions, their history . . . and each other.
And in “Egorov,” a wealthy old cretin murders a young man, not knowing the victim was a triplet. The two surviving brothers stage a savage faux-haunting–playing the ghost of their slain brother–with the aim of driving the old murderer mad.
FBI Special Agent Duncan McGuire spends his days–and his nights–tracking real-life monsters. Most humans aren’t aware of the vampires and werewolves that walk among them. They don’t realize the danger that they face, but Duncan knows about the horror that waits in the darkness. He hunts the monsters, and he protects the innocent. Duncan just never expects to become a monster. But after a brutal werewolf attack, Duncan begins to change…and soon he will be one of the very beasts that he has hunted.
Dr. Holly Young is supposed to help Duncan during his transition. It’s her job to keep him sane so that Duncan can continue working with the FBI’s Para Unit. But as Duncan’s beast grows stronger, the passion that she and Duncan have held carefully in check pushes to the surface. The desire that is raging between them could be a very dangerous thing…because Holly isn’t exactly human, not any longer.
As the monsters circle in, determined to take out all of the agents working at the Para Unit, Holly and Duncan will have to use their own supernatural strengths in order to survive. But as they give up more of their humanity and embrace the beasts within them both, they realize that the passion between them isn’t safe, it isn’t controllable, and their dark need may just be an obsession that could destroy them both.
Author’s Note: THE WOLF WITHIN is an adult paranormal romance. It contains werewolves, vampires, adult language, sexy times, and lots of danger. Please consider yourself warned. THE WOLF WITHIN contains approximately 60,000 words.
What I think I will read next:
Two years together.
Twenty years apart.
One day to change their story.
2000. Benjamin’s world is turned upside down the day he meets Clara. Instinctively, he knows that she is his person and he is hers, but a devastating mistake on one of their last nights at university will take their lives in very different directions.
20 years later, an explosion is reported in the city where Clara and Ben met, and she is pulled back to a place she tries not to remember and the first love she could never forget. Searching for Ben, Clara prays that twenty years of silence is about to end.
But is it too late to put right what went wrong?
Tabby Winslow will help her twin sister Sage with anything and everything—and that includes putting out the flames of suspicion when Sage’s boss is found murdered in this magical mystery, perfect for fans of Amanda Flower and Sofie Kelly.
December in Savannah, Georgia, is a sight to behold. With all the festivities—including the traditional riverfront luminary display during the boat parade—twin sisters Tabby and Sage Winslow are busier than ever setting up for the big celebration. But that isn’t the only thing on the sisters’ minds. Both Sage and her fellow employee Mary Nicole are vying for the sought-after assistant manager job at the plant nursery. But when Loren Lee, their boss, is found dead, and Sage becomes the police’s favorite suspect, both Winslow girls know that they’ll need more than a flicker of magic and their sisterhood to solve the murder and clear Sage’s name.
Soon, Tabby realizes that this is just one of the many problems they have. If being a suspect for murder wasn’t enough, there are more magical problems that they have to fix: Sage’s boyfriend is having a paranormal experience of his own he can’t control, there’s an energy vampire searching for his supposedly lost cousin, and oh—every time Tabby hiccups, she turns completely invisible. The suspect list grows with each day and it seems everyone has a reason or a connection to Loren Lee.
Tabby and Sage are burning the candle at both ends—but will it be enough to keep their friends safe and find this killer? Or will they be burned by their efforts?
Jay Zander was a cheerful ten year old living in the painfully quiet town of Mentis, home to only dust and daydreams. But, things take a terrifying turn when this serene town, and many others, are struck by a mysterious meteor shower, forcing Jay’s family to lock him away in frozen slumber as protection from the impending doomsday. Now, thirteen years later, Jay awakes in a new world overrun by vicious creatures know as shadows, where he embarks on a journey to unearth a legendary organization of powerful individuals who may hold the key to saving the planet completely lost in darkness.
At each turning point in her life, Maggie heard the warning bells chime…
Scotland, 1950s
Depressed by her rural upbringing, Maggie Robertson dreams of leading the glamorous life of an actress in London. However, her father expects her to stay at home and learn to take care of the family.
When Maggie secretly gets a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, everything changes. And with each step towards adulthood, the warning bell of her conscience chimes.
Are friends and family worth sacrificing for her freedom? Will her own son become disposable on the road to success?
Maggie must decide how far she is willing to go to achieve her dreams…
The Warning Bellis a dramatic and moving saga of one women’s fight to achieve independence in a man’s world – a literary masterpiece that will stay with you long after the pages have turned.
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
Every love story begins with once upon a time .
London, 1832 : Isabelle Lira may be in distress, but she’s no damsel. Since her father’s death, his former partners have sought to oust her from their joint equity business. Her only choice is to marry—and fast —to a powerful ally outside the respected Berab family’s sphere of influence. Only finding the right spouse will require casting a wide net. So she’ll host a series of festivals, to which every eligible Jewish man is invited.
Once, Aaron Ellenberg longed to have a family of his own. But as the synagogue custodian, he is too poor for wishes and not foolish enough for dreams. Until the bold, beautiful Isabelle Lira presents him with an irresistible offer . . . if he ensures her favored suitors have no hidden loyalties to the Berabs, she will provide him with money for a new life.
Yet the transaction provides surprising temptation, as Aaron and Isabelle find caring and passion in the last person they each expected. Only a future for them is impossible—for heiresses don’t marry orphans, and love only conquers in children’s tales. But if Isabelle can find the courage to trust her heart, she’ll discover anything is possible, if only she says yes.
Juno meets Heartstopper in this poignant and emotional story about found family, what it means to be a parent, and falling in love.
Benjamin Morrison is about to start junior year of high school and while his family is challenging, he is pretty content with his life, with his two best friends, and being a part of the robotics club. Until an experiment at science camp has completely unexpected consequences.
He is going to be a father. Something his mother was not expecting after he came out as gay and she certainly wasn’t expecting that he would want to raise the baby as a single father. But together they come up with a plan to prepare Ben for fatherhood and fight for his rights.
The weight of Ben’s decision presses down on him. He’s always tired, his grades fall, and tension rises between his mom and stepfather. He’s letting down his friends in the robotics club whose future hinges on his expertise. If it wasn’t for his renewed friendship (and maybe more) with a boy from his past, he wouldn’t be able to face the daily ridicule at school or the crumbling relationship with his best friends.
With every new challenge, every new sacrifice he has to make, Ben questions his choice. He’s lived with a void in his heart where a father’s presence should have been, and the fear of putting his own child through that keeps him clinging to his decision. When the baby might be in danger, Ben’s faced with a heart wrenching realization: sometimes being a parent means making the hard choices even if they are the choices you don’t want to make…
One night. That’s all the time a family has to decide what to do with the man they believe murdered their daughter: Do they forgive him, or take justice into their own hands? An electrifying novel by the author of Nanny Needed. . .
The anonymous letters arrive in the mail, one by one: To find out what really happened to Meghan, meet at this location. Don’t tell anyone you’re coming. In one night, you’ll find out everything you need to know.
Ten years after her murder, the letters tell Meghan’s family exactly when and where to meet: a cliffside home on the Oregon coast. But on the night they’re promised answers, the convicted killer–her high school boyfriend, Cal, who spent only ten years in prison for murder–is found unconscious in his car, slammed into a light pole near the house where the family is sitting and waiting. Is he the one who invited them to gather?
As a storm rampages along the Pacific Northwest, the power cuts off and leaves the family with no chance of returning to the main road and finding help. So they drag Cal back to the house for the remainder of the night. How easy it would be to let him die and claim it was an accident. Or do they help him instead? As the hours tick by, it becomes an excruciating choice. Half of the family wants to kill him. The other half wants him to regain consciousness so he can tell them what he knows.
But if Cal wakes up, he might reveal that someone in the family knows more than they’re letting on. And if that’s the case, who is the real killer? And are they already in the house?
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet and share what you have been and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit, comment, and add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at The Book Date.
Jen Vincent, Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee of Unleashing Readers decided to give It’s Monday! a kid-lit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle-grade novels, young adult novels, or anything in those genres – join them.
Personal:
I am sick of this hot weather. Not only is it hot, but it is humid, and it makes it very difficult to be outside for any length of time. We usually rely on afternoon thunderstorms to cool everything off in the evenings, but those haven’t happened either.
Considering what I said above, we did have severe storms roll through last Monday. Two tornados touched down that were part of the storms (they didn’t touch down here). My gazebo (which has survived everything) was a casualty of this storm. We have had a few huge branches fall. Thankfully, our city collects yard waste weekly, so the branches and such were handled.
The countdown to school is getting real. Miss B has senior pictures at the end of this week, and next week, Mr. Z will pick up his Chromebook, and Miss R has her Sneak Peek.
Miss R is back to riding!! I won’t get into the whole story, but she hasn’t had lessons between rain, last week’s storm, and her barn moving. She was so thrilled to be back riding.
Reading
I am right on track for where I want to be, reading-wise. I have made a huge dent in my ARCs from NetGalley. I am almost halfway through my author requests books too. Sticking to a schedule has helped a lot. Reading/reviewing on weekdays and reading what I want on weekends works for me.
I am on track with reviews also, which rarely happens. Again, I set up a schedule and forced myself to stick to it. I average about 4-5 reviews a week (with some scheduled later in the year).
Unfortunately, I am not doing that great with my reading challenges. I think I will only finish a couple of the challenges. But it’s alright. I knew I had overextended myself. Next year will be different.
Cooking
I didn’t cook anything last week. This damn weather is just too hot for cooking. We ate a lot of salads, cold cuts, and pizza.
Even though I didn’t cook last week, I am cooking this week. I am making chicken parm, two pasta recipes, and a quick beef goulash.
So, that’s my catch-up.
Anything exciting or different happen this week?
Make anything good this past week, or plan on making it this week?
Read anything new?
Read anything on this list?
Let me know!!
What I am Reading Now:
A woman uploads her DNA online, searching for her father–but the man who contacts her is Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens. From the acclaimed author of Little Sister, this endlessly twisty crime novel asks: What might a family do to protect or expose a serial killer in its midst?
When the police found the first body, left on a bonfire in the fields, they worried it had the hallmarks of a serial killer.
Now, as they find the second, they know for sure.
Panic about the “bonfire killer” quickly spreads through the sedate, suburban area of Southampton. Women are urged not to travel alone at night, and constant vigilance is encouraged among the local residents. But single mom Aisling Cooley has a lot to distract her: two beloved teenage sons and a quest to find her long-lost father, whom she hasn’t seen since she was a teenager growing up in Ireland.
After much debate she decides to upload her DNA to an ancestry website, and when she gets a match she is filled with an anxious excitement, that her questions about her father’s disappearance from her life might finally be answered.
But to her horror, it’s not her father who’s found her. It’s a detective.
And they say her DNA is a close match for the bonfire killer…
Books I plan on reading later this week:
Two years together.
Twenty years apart.
One day to change their story.
2000. Benjamin’s world is turned upside down the day he meets Clara. Instinctively, he knows that she is his person and he is hers, but a devastating mistake on one of their last nights at university will take their lives in very different directions.
20 years later, an explosion is reported in the city where Clara and Ben met, and she is pulled back to a place she tries not to remember and the first love she could never forget. Searching for Ben, Clara prays that twenty years of silence is about to end.
But is it too late to put right what went wrong?
Tabby Winslow will help her twin sister Sage with anything and everything—and that includes putting out the flames of suspicion when Sage’s boss is found murdered in this magical mystery, perfect for fans of Amanda Flower and Sofie Kelly.
December in Savannah, Georgia, is a sight to behold. With all the festivities—including the traditional riverfront luminary display during the boat parade—twin sisters Tabby and Sage Winslow are busier than ever setting up for the big celebration. But that isn’t the only thing on the sisters’ minds. Both Sage and her fellow employee Mary Nicole are vying for the sought-after assistant manager job at the plant nursery. But when Loren Lee, their boss, is found dead, and Sage becomes the police’s favorite suspect, both Winslow girls know that they’ll need more than a flicker of magic and their sisterhood to solve the murder and clear Sage’s name.
Soon, Tabby realizes that this is just one of the many problems they have. If being a suspect for murder wasn’t enough, there are more magical problems that they have to fix: Sage’s boyfriend is having a paranormal experience of his own he can’t control, there’s an energy vampire searching for his supposedly lost cousin, and oh—every time Tabby hiccups, she turns completely invisible. The suspect list grows with each day and it seems everyone has a reason or a connection to Loren Lee.
Tabby and Sage are burning the candle at both ends—but will it be enough to keep their friends safe and find this killer? Or will they be burned by their efforts?
