- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: This was a book that was very hyped in the librarian/bookseller community last year, and I finally got around to reading it. It was really, really good! The writing was beautiful and it certainly made me FEEL things. Not necessarily for the characters per se, which is interesting, but for humanity in general and what it would be like if 99% of the world population died in a massive pandemic.
- Simply Perfect by Mary Balogh: I already wrote a post about this series earlier this summer, so you can read that here for my thoughts on it.
- Searching for Beautiful and Searching for Always by Jennifer Probst: I don't really remember how I came across the first book in this series, Searching for Someday, but it was about a matchmaking agency headed by 3 best friends and it sounded promising. I enjoyed the first one quite a bit, but the next one in the series, Searching for Perfect, stole the show. I was impatiently waiting for the next two in the series to be released and that happened this summer. Both Searching for Beautiful and Always were exactly what I loved about the second one with great heroes and heroines, snarky dialogue, and steamy sex scenes. All of that adds up to a perfect romance in the eyes of this romance reader :)
- Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal: This book I received an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) while at BookExpo in May, but didn't get around to reading it until July (one day before it was released). I didn't really know what this book was at all before reading it, and I think that was a great thing. I loved the way in which it was told, by having each chapter have a different narrator. Overall, the story told is about Eva Thorvald, but it is never (except for one chapter when she was quite young) told by her, but instead by people within her life from infancy to when she becomes a megastar, elite chef. This book is charming, witty, and a little bit heart-wrenching too. The food in it sounds amazing, from the Midwestern comfort food to the fancy, high-class food when Eva is a famous chef. I enjoyed this book so much that I instantly made it a book-club book, just so that I can talk about it with others. I just hope they liked it as much as I did!
- Circling the Sun by Paula McClain. I read and enjoyed Paula McClain's novel, The Paris Wife about Hadley, Ernest Hemingway's first wife. It was written very well, and brought the time and place to life so vividly. It also made me a bit sick to read because of the way that Hemingway acted. Not a fan of his work, and not a fan of the man. Circling the Sun had that same beautiful writing, but this time it was even more apparent because of the breathtaking, yet sometimes harsh setting of Colonial Kenya. Circling the Sun follows real-life horse trainer, turned aviator, Beryl Markham. I love books that center on real-life figures, especially if they are lesser known (at least to me). It spurs me on to read more of the character, and in this case I hope to read Beryl's book on her life and her grand flight from the UK to North America, the first ever to fly in this direction (more difficult and longer than in the direction Lindbergh flew),West with the Night. Another character in the novel is Karen Blixen who wrote as Isak Dinsen. Her famous book was Out of Africa, which I also intend to read. Out of Africa is also an Oscar-winning movie, so you know what that means! :)