Thank you for joining me here! I hope you enjoy this series and I’d love to hear from you about what you are reading these days.
Book #1:
Search by Michele Huneven (Length: 400 pages) This novel is so unique and well-written. Semi-based on fact, this is written memoir-style (and is so vivid I had to Google this a few times to make sure it’s in fact a novel) by a restaurant food critic who joins her Unitarian Church’s search committee for their next minister. The novel discusses the year-long search and the drama that ensues amongst the committee members. This is an oddly compelling novel and I had to keep reading, even when I didn’t care for the narrator’s “voice” that much. I will say this drags quite a bit in the middle (and could have been 100 pages shorter) but since I had to know how it ended, I kept on reading, and I’m glad I did. The narrator’s description of the food/meals she also ate while visiting restaurants for her reviews were also very well done. This is definitely a memorable novel and I’d give it 4.5 stars overall.
Book #2:
Forever After All by Catharina Maura (Length: 486 pages). This was a free book via Amazon Prime that I took a chance on. This is a very “soapy” (a la soap opera) and VERY open door romance, featuring a very controlling man/love interest. The premise is semi-interesting: a woman’s mom is in a coma and she’s trying to keep her alive because she thinks or “knows” she’s not brain-dead and will someday wake up but she can no longer afford her medical care and the man needs to marry in order to become CEO of a billion-dollar company. Yes, it’s not believable at all, and no, thanks to LOTS of grammatical errors (not typos–just poorly written) and the aforementioned super-controlling man at the heart of this story, this is a definite SKIP in my book.
Book #3:
The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin (Length: 319 pages). The subtitle to this one is “A memoir of lying, stealing, writing and healing” and that about sums it up. This memoir is SO GOOD! The author is a soccer mom (to 4 kids) turned opiate-addict with 32 felony convictions (and 1 year in lock up in county jail) turned celebrated ghostwriter. She ghost-wrote books for the Archbishop Tutu and Anthony Ray Hinton (The Sun Does Shine). This is phenomenally written, and I literally couldn’t put it down. I sat down to peek at the first few pages and I looked up 200 pages later. Her stories about her time in jail and the injustices of criminal confinement for so many women are truly beautifully told. The first line of each chapter is also an attention-grabber (typically humorous) and she has said that was intentional. This is an absolute must read and will be on my top 10 books of the year.
Lora Terrill 