Until about ten minutes ago this post’s title was ‘ARCs January’ but that ship has sailed and so here we are, mid-February, apparently there’s a huge sporting event tonight (!?!?) and then the heart-shaped holiday later this week for which I may attempt to make heart shaped pancakes for my children. I may also just make regular shaped pancakes and then use a cookie-cutter to make them into hearts. This may also have the added benefit of making them into a finger food. Will report back ;)I’ve read five ARCs since Christmas and that constitutes about half the books I’ve read in this period – it’s been a quiet reading time for me but that’s okay – I’m fully accepting the ebb and flow of my reading this year and find that I’m connecting a bit more with each title rather than just racing through them – some more food for thought.
And now, the books!
The Friendship Study by Ruby Barrett
NetGalley, e-book
This is a beautiful story of learning to trust (yourself and someone else) and learning to be yourself (with yourself and with others). The story of Jesse and Lulu is going to stay with me because it spoke to me on so many levels and I think I’ll need to come back to it – the depth of the character development and beauty of the writing was just so touching and relevant.
To pick only three things to tell you that I loved was hard but here we go: I just loved that Lulu has a favourite tree. I loved the Alzheimer’s storyline which highlighted a really beautiful relationship between grandfather and grandson. And I couldn’t help but love the so many ways that love and adult friendship is explored throughout the novel and it’s cast of characters.
Bravo!
Until Forever Ends by Annabelle McCormack
BookSirens, e-book
Brandywood #4 – a lovely opportunity to drop back into the small town world of bakers and restauranteers! This novel focuses on the decades long feud between the Yardley’s and Wagners as two of the third generation (Lindsay and Travis) navigate a decade of hooking up amid business woes in the small town. They’re thrust together, willingly and unwillingly, to come up with a solution and in the course of these official duties they also find lots of time to go on a first date (plus a few more) and begin to navigate what a real relationship might look like.
But nothing stays a secret in Brandywood and there are lots that come out of the woodwork in this novel (and then some!). A fun smalltown romance with lots of family drama!
The Cure for Drowning by Loghan Paylor
NetGalley, e-book
This book. An easy five star read for me. I was doubtful when I first clicked the book open on my Kindle on a Friday afternoon on the train ride home, this doesn’t seem like a unwind and relax kind of book I told myself. And yet I found myself immersed, easily captured by the story, the characters, the setting, the vividness of it all. It came so alive in my hands, in my mind and I gulped it – finishing it on Sunday afternoon as my kids watched tv before dinner.
I’m no stranger to the Second World War apart from clearly not having lived through it. I’ve read many, many novels set during the period and studied it in school and research it professionally. And this work blew me away. The detail, the emotion, the reality of it all – this book is SO well done. It spoke to me on so many levels and I will be thinking about it for weeks, months to come.
The book is written from two perspectives, Rebekah and Kit (aka Kathleen aka Christopher). The two are thrust together in sleepy rural Ontario in the immediate pre-war summer, two teenaged girls on the cusp of womanhood. Rebekah the city girl come with her parents and doctor father to this town, Kit the country girl who is confident and fierce, one with the land she works alongside her brothers and parents on their sheep farm. The two women explore their romantic feelings for one another in hidden corners of the land, stolen moments in the sunshine. And yet it’s not enough.
Because as with so many stories from this period, violence, distrust, fear and sadness grip the characters and the story, from highs to lows, and all the in betweens. This story has me feeling all the feelings, like I’ve just had an epic love story breeze past me in a Lancaster or perhaps even on the afternoon train. It’s a Canadian love saga with a fantastical twist that is rooted in the land, in the weather and the people and history of the land.
Canadian Boyfriend by Jenny Holiday
NetGalley, e-book
This was as sweet as a double-double! Although to be fair I abhor sugar in my hot drinks so truly I wouldn’t know, but it’s an educated, well-founded guess and it sounds good 😉
This is a beautiful story of two unlikely people coming together, kind of a spin on live-in nanny for a single dad (widower), so lots of forced proximity, somewhat forbidden romance vibes. It’s also a bit of a dance novel which has kind of become my thing so that part (Aurora, our leading lady was a ballet dancer as a child and teen and now teaches Olivia, the child of aforementioned single dad, at a local dance studio). There is such great mental health rep in this book, like I cannot even begin to describe how good it is. Both main characters go to therapy, while acknowledging its relative inaccessiblility for so many due to lack of insurance, and we get to see big changes in our main characters as they live through a year or so of their lives in one another’s orbits.
That’s something else I’d like to touch on here – the period of time. There is something exciting about fast-paced romances, hot and heavy in every sense of the word. And yet Holiday makes this novel just about perfect in how she pulls out the story, the relationship and the love slowly but surely, and honestly more realistically, over the course of 1 – 2 years (if we count the epilogue like ending, which we should!).
The Takeover by Cate Tanamachi
NetGalley, e-book
This was a fun read from Tanamachi. As much as I love books with heroines who’s interests mirror my own, it’s also fun to read about heroines, like in this novel, who are small or big business owners with corporate goals and dreams. Nami and Jae are thrown together in this enemies to lovers,Chicago-based corporate story. There’s a lot of laughs (see the stolen chair subplot) and lots of girl bosses (in all the good ways).
There’s also really strong character development which is nice to see in an otherwise equal parts serious and light romance.
RebeccaReads 