Fall Book Review

 

Hello! I hope all is going well with you. Fall is passing by so quickly this year.  It is hard to believe that the children are almost 12 weeks into the school year.  We have had a beautiful fall this year.  It started earlier this year than usual but slowed down and took time.  We have another good week of colorful leaves, and they will probably all be gone.  I am looking forward to Thanksgiving break as my mom will be here, and we will be going to Florida.  I miss not having her just down the street.  I had better hurry as I needed to take my son to his boxing lessons in a few minutes.  I wish we had a studio closer to our home, but I am really happy with where we are going. The trainers adore Roman and really seem to care about his well-being.  

The first book I want to share with you is called One For The Blackbird, One For The Crow, and is written by Olivia Hawker.  She is a new author to me as I have never read her books.  The book is set in 1870 Wyoming and is about two families living on the prairie. The book opens with the father of one family shooting and killing the father of the other as he has caught his wife and the neighbor in a precarious situation.  Mr. Bemis received a shortened jail sentence of two years due to his good character and the circumstances that led up to the shooting.  This leaves one wife a widow and the other temporarily without a husband.  How will they survive the winter?  This book is fiction and is very well written.  I didn't know anything about the book before purchasing it. I picked it up because the book cover shows the famous Mormon Row barn just outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming, near the Grand Teton National Park.

The next book I read was called From Sand and Ash by Amy Harmon.  This was the second book of hers that I have read.  It is a historical fiction set in Italy during WWII. It tells the story of the Jewish people and how many of them were able to escape the gas chamber in Auschwitz and other concentrations. The story is riveting and was enjoyable to read despite the subject matter.

The third book I would like to share is The Shape of Water, written by Andrea Camilleri.  I found this book on the shelf of our hotel and was intrigued by it as it was set in Sicily.  I want to say we visited Sicily 10-plus years ago and found the island beautiful despite some unpleasant run-ins we had with the mafia.  The mafia is a real thing.  That story is for another day, but The Shape of Water is a crime story and is totally fictional. This book was a fast and fun read.

The last book I want to share is a total fluff book.  Fictional and a super easy read by Elin Hilderbrand called The Five Star Weekend. The book is set on the island of Nantucket. The story is about a middle-aged woman who, looking for something to do with her time, becomes a food blogger. One snowy morning, after getting in a fight with her husband, he departs for the airport and ends up in a car wreck that takes his life.  How will she move on?  Some time passes, and seeing an idea in a news article, she decides to replicate the idea by inviting friends from various stages in her life to come spend the weekend with her. Needless to say, the weekend turns out to be anything but relaxing. I don't read many books like this one because they are pretty simple, but I find that once in a while, it is good to read a book like this, especially when I have read a much more difficult historical fiction.  

Well, I better run!  What are you currently reading?