August book reviews (almost to goal)

I slowed down a bit reading in August but did read 6 books as reviewed below.  This puts my total books read for the year at 49.  I think I'll make the 50 books I challenged myself to read by the end of the year :)

Kitchen Yarns:  

This was a delightful book.  I think maybe Lori had mentioned it on her blog?  Ann Hood, the author, wrote mini essays (a chapter each) of foods she enjoyed from growing up to adulthood and beyond.  Foods her grandmother, mother, and father had made; foods she had made.  Recipes she had found and had adapted to be her own.  At the end of each chapter was the corresponding recipes for the foods she had talked about.  The essays aren't in any particular order.  Some from her childhood, then to being a young adult, a mom with young children, etc.  Always a life story along with the food impressionable to her at the time.  I really enjoyed this book and the recipes, for the most part, seemed simple and easy to put together.  I can't wait to try some of them, especially the blueberry muffins from her time as a Marsha Jordan girl. For an easy summer read or anytime of the year, I would highly recommend this book.  I give it 5 stars.

Three More Months:

Chloe is a busy pharmacist living in a different town than her mom.  She has been neglecting spending time with her mom due to being busy but plans to take a weekend soon to go visit her.  In the meantime, her mom dies.  Chloe now has to go home (about 3 hours from where she was currently living) to tend to the funeral arrangements with her brother, Andy.  Devastated with grief, they wonder how they'll get through life without their mom and Chloe also feels the guilt of not visiting her mom more.  By some miracle, she wakes up one morning before the funeral and sees she has gone back in time of about 2 months and her mom is still alive.  Over the course of the book, she tries to keep her mom alive through healthy food cooking class, exercising, and mindful meditation.  She is always anxious, wondering if something will again happen to her mom.  She plans a wonderful birthday surprise for her mom and a trip to a place her mom always wanted to go to.  They have a lovely vacation but then she wakes up again on another morning and her mom is now dead again.  She wasn't sure if she had dreamed the extra 3 months she had with her mom or if it was just a fluke in the universe but she was grateful for that time.  An interesting story.  I got a little tired of the continual writing of how much guilt Chloe had about not spending time with her mom and how she had to do everything to try to keep her mom alive, but the story was engaging and the book did wrap up at the end.  I'll give it 3 stars.

The House Across the Lake: 

This is the description of the book from Goodreads:  Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of liquor, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple who live in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing—a tech innovator, Tom is rich; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous.  One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other—and the longer Casey watches—it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage is not as perfect and placid as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey becomes consumed with finding out what happened to her. In the process, she uncovers eerie, darker truths that turn a tale of voyeurism and suspicion into a story of guilt, obsession and how looks can be very deceiving.  With his trademark blend of sharp characters, psychological suspense, and gasp-worthy surprises, Riley Sager’s The House Across the Lake unveils more than one twist that will shock readers until the very last page.

 

Sounded like an interesting thriller and it was up to a point, but BIG SPOILER ALERT.  Casey had discovered 14 months prior that her husband was a serial killer, killing 3 women in the area and dumping their bodies in the lake.  Her intent was to turn him into the police, but instead she kills him by giving him lots of antihistamines and then taking him out to the middle of the lake and pushing him out of the boat, drowning him.  She starts drinking a lot because she can't handle the guilt of killing him or knowing he killed 3 other women (though she did not turn him in because then it might have been suspicious with his death).  Meanwhile, she does rescue Katherine from drowning.  We find out that Katherine's husband, Tom, is poisoning her slowly but in the meantime when she was in the lake, potentially drowning, she became possessed with the spirit of Len.  Now this is when I should have stopped reading the book because I do not care for these particular plots but it was about 70% into the book and I had to see how it ended.  I won't give any more spoilers (gave enough) but the book does rap up, no loose ends, but there are not pleasant parts of the last few chapters until the last epilogue we will call it.  I would never have checked out the book if I knew the plot would develop like this. I give it a 1 star because of my not liking books like this.  It was a thriller for sure and nicely written.  But just definitely not my kind of book. 

The Summer Place:

The story involves the matriarch of the family, Ronnie, her twins (Sam and Sarah), Sarah's husband (Eli), Ruby (Eli's daughter), Gabe (Ruby's fiancee) and Rosa (Gabe's mom.  Ruby and Gabe are planning to be married in Cape Cod at the family summer place where Ronnie has been hanging out since the pandemic began . Now that life is getting back to more normal, the family is looking forward to the summer wedding though each of the main characters have secrets from the past that potentially could come and expose them during the wedding weekend.  It does somewhat end "happily ever after" but there are lots of different twists to the story and a bit of sadness along the way.  A good summer read.  I give it 4 stars.  

Malibu Rising:  

I believe Bijoux mentioned this book and I'm glad she did as it was truly a delightful story to read.  I got "lost" in it and had trouble putting it down.  It is  a fictional story of a famous singer who had 4 children but could not remain faithful to his wife.  The story is told in the then and now with the now being centered around a party that the oldest child, now 25 years old, holds yearly at her home in Malibu, and the closeness she and her 3 siblings have with each other and the reason for their close bond.  The story was well written and had a good ending.  Definitely a great summer read.  I give it 5 stars.  

Any Other Family:

Another book I truly enjoyed.  Three families adopt siblings who are biologically related and resolve to try to have the siblings remain close to each other though raised in separate homes.  The "family" get together for holidays, weekly dinners and other events.  The story centers around their first vacation taken as a family and the dynamics of that as well as the birth mom of the four siblings (a set of twins) is pregnant again and has decided not to raise this child so the family has to decide if one of them will adopt the baby or introduce another family into their family.  Interspersed within the story are profiles of the people who are working with the adoption agency who are looking for a child and their reasons to adopt (took me a few of these profiles to get what they were).  The book doesn't resolve who the family is who will adopt the new sibling but alludes that a family has been picked.  Since I have 2 adopted children, this topic was  of interest to me (though both of mine were closed adoptions). A great read.  I give it 5 stars.  

I can't believe we are in September already! We'll blink and it will be Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas! Wow!