Books

Book 1,013: Make Me Stay (Safe Harbor #2) – Annabeth Albert

If there is a theme to Albert’s Safe Harbor series it is a little bit too much. Don’t get me wrong, they are not bad books, each one just has one or two too many elements for me. They’re still very well written character driven stories, there’s just too much going on for my personal tastes.

I’m not sure if this falls under the hurt/comfort or maybe (hurt/comfort)2, but it is somewhere in that category. Both main characters have trauma they start to overcome in this novel. Then you throw in the murder mystery and the kinky sex, it’s a lot.

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Books

Book 1,012: Bring Me Home (Safe Harbor #1) – Annabeth Albert

This is probably the novel I should’ve picked up to end my dry streak. Annabeth Albert has almost always given me a great read with wonderful character driven plotlines. Even on the few occasions that I wasn’t enamored, I was still impressed with the characters (especially the minor) and the humor. This book was no different.

It isn’t my favorite book by Albert, but it is a wonderful read opening a whole new friend group that she’ll explore in her Safe Harbor series. This is the story of Monroe, an ex-Navy investigator who’s come back to a small town in Oregon because his aunt left him a house. A childhood friend’s grown kid, Knox, needs somewhere to stay for the summer and of course it’s the guy who caught his eye at the club recently in Portland. The high jinks come fast and furious from there, as do the big emotions and the relatively low stakes drama Albert is best at.

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ARC, Books

Book 881: The Best Gift – Eli Easton

When this one came in to my inbox I didn’t jump at it.* I was drawn to the veteran storyline and the  other protagonist having lost his son recently, but Easton isn’t an OMG must read even though I enjoyed her Clyde’s Corner series.

And I was more-or-less right. There wasn’t anything wrong with the story but I finished less than three days ago as I’m writing this and I’ve forgotten so much of it already. That’s not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to MM Romance novels, because they’re really for fun and enjoyment not deep thoughts and pondering, but three days seems a bit short even for that.

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Book 100: Snow Falling on Cedars – David Guterson

If I had a ranking system for the novels I read and it was based on beauty, Snow Falling on Cedars would definitely be towards the top of that list. It has to take an amazing writer/wordsmith to make me want to live on a small island off the coast of Washington State and take up farming of some sort. I read this book for my Books into Movies book group at the local library and I am VERY glad I did. I plan on watching the movie later this evening or tomorrow.

Snow Falling on Cedars focuses on a murder trial, but it is not just a legal story, or a love story, or even just a war story as you might think from the back cover. It is a novel about a town forced to look into the mirror and see the harsh truths and realities simmering just under the surface. Set almost ten years after the end of World War II, the novel was a lot broader and a lot more powerful (and suspenseful) than the back-cover synopsis led me to think. But, more than anything, what took my breath away was the vitriol of some of the (surprisingly mostly female) characters and their overt racism. I was surprised at how upset I was at various points throughout the novel when placed into a character’s shoes and how they were treated.

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Books

Book 54: The Professor and the Madman – Simon Winchester

The Professor and the Madman - Simon WinchesterThe complete title of this work is The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary and it fully lives up to this title. It is the history of Professor James Murray (the Professor) and Dr. W.C. Minor (the Madman) and their serendipitously linked lives through one of the greatest feats of the English-speaking world.

It’s a fascinating combination of historical novel about the Oxford English Dictionary and Biography of its longest editors (Murray) and greatest contributors (Minor). If there’s one major critique I have is that it often felt like the author purposefully used a ridiculous synonyms when a simple word would suffice. However, with his obsession for lexicography and the OED in particular, it’s not too surprising.

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