Thoughts on books, editing, story craft, and the reader's life — from a copy editor and developmental editor who lives inside stories every single day.
“Ill survive this. Ill live. But theres a hole in me, never to be filled. Maybe thats why people die of old age. Maybe we could live forever if we didnt love so completely. But we do. And by the time old age comes, were filled with holes, so many that its too hard to breathe. So many that our insides arent even ours anymore. Were just one big empty space, waiting to be filled by the darkness. Waiting to be free.”
Continue reading
Wrapping up our McFadden project…
Glorious was the last on our McFadden list. We fell in love with her writing when we read Sugar last year, so much so that we unanimously decided to read through her backlist.
Summary - Glorious is set against the backdrops of the Jim Crow South, the Harlem Renaissance, and the civil rights era. Blending the truth of American history with the fruits of Bernice L. McFaddens rich imagination, this is the story of Easter Venetta Bartlett, a fictional Harlem Renaissance writer whose tumultuous path to success, ruin, and revival offers a candid portrait of the American experience in all its beauty and cruelty.
Continue readingWhat a hilarious bud read…
I don’t know if I would have picked up this book on my own but when Juani told Sandra and I that it was her pick for her birthday month bud read we knew it would be a fun one
Summary - Lyla has always believed that life is a game she is destined to win, but her husband, Graham, takes the game to dangerous levels. The wealthy couple invites self-made success stories to live in their guesthouse and then conspires to ruin their lives.
Continue reading
Three-star-meh-book streak broken!
I was saving Abby Jimenez’s new book Part of Your World for the perfect moment and after my millionth 3-star book I knew it was time…and it worked, I loved it!
Summary - After a wild bet, gourmet grilled-cheese sandwich, and cuddle with a baby goat, Alexis Montgomery has had her world turned upside down. The cause: Daniel Grant, a ridiculously hot carpenter who’s ten years younger than her and as casual as they comethe complete opposite of sophisticated city-girl Alexis.
Continue reading
Peach Blossom Spring
“Within every misfortune there is a blessing and within every blessing, the seeds of misfortune, and so it goes, until the end of time.”
Summary - A beautifully novel about war, migration, and the power of telling our stories, Peach Blossom Spring follows three generations of a Chinese family on their search for a place to call home.
Beautiful doesn’t begin to describe this book. First you follow Meilin and she and her son Renshu are forced to flee their home due to war. Then you follow Renshu on his journey to and in America. Then you follow Lily, Renshu’s daughter try to navigate in a world that she isn’t sure where fits. The timeline moves quickly but it is done in a way that flows seamlessly. Having a book span as many years as this allows the reader to see the big picture of how families take root, how they acclimate, and what they hold on to. This is truly a special book, I highly recommend it.
Continue reading
Perhaps the biggest trage of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns…We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.
Summary - Radical acceptance is a way of coping with lifes difficulties. It involves accepting your flaws and the things that you cannot change, without being judgmental about them. Western society is constantly criticizing itself and questioning its self-worth. Radical acceptance offers an antidote to this problem by helping people accept difficult emotions without judging themselves.
Continue reading
“What else do I not know about my wife”
Summary - I have held you every night for ten years and I didnt even know your name. We have a child together. A dog, a house. Who are you? Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: shed do anything for them. But almost everything she’s told them about herself is a lie…
With a premise like that I thought I’d be sucked right in, but I wasn’t. It is described as a thriller on the front cover but I really don’t think this was a thriller, at least not the thriller you’re expecting. The first half is a slow build to figure out what secrets Emma has been keeping, I wish this had more character building, but it was all plot and not a very strong one if I’m being honest.
Continue reading
Bonded by books…
When someone shares the amount of love you have for a particular book something special forms, a bookworm bond so to speak. Sandra and I bonded years ago over love for The Secret Life of Bees so when this book was marketed for fans of it we immediately knew we needed to read What the Fireflies Knew.
Summary - A dazzling and moving novel about family, identity, and race, What the Fireflies Knew poignantly reveals that heartbreaking but necessary component of growing upthe realization that loved ones can be flawed and that the perfect family we all dream of looks different up close.
Continue reading
February #read bud read…
Leonard Pitts, Jr is an underrated author. Two of his other books, Freeman and The Last Thing You Surrender are all-time favorite reads of mine. His writing is among some of the best and I hope his books find a place on your TBR.
Summary - Grant Park is a page-turning and provocative look at black and white relations in contemporary America, blending the absurd and the poignant in a powerfully well-crafted narrative that showcases Pitts’s gift for telling emotionally wrenching stories.
Continue reading
Author Appreciation Post…
March 2019 - one of my early bud reads was Hum If You Don’t Know the Words and still semi new-ish to bookstagram. Bianca came to our final chat and answered questions and discussed Hum with us. Couldn’t believe this space existed where we just chat with authors!
May 2019 - received an ARC of If You Want to Make God Laugh and read with some of the people from the Hum group. Second time I was blown away by Bianca’s writing.
Continue reading
