Review: The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore

Publisher: Kensington

Pages: 384

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  For Mirielle West, a 1920’s socialite married to a silent film star, the isolation and powerlessness of the Louisiana Leper Home is an unimaginable fall from her intoxicatingly chic life of bootlegged champagne and the star-studded parties of Hollywood’s Golden Age. When a doctor notices a pale patch of skin on her hand, she’s immediately branded a leper and carted hundreds of miles from home to Carville, taking a new name to spare her family and famous husband the shame that accompanies the disease.

At first she hopes her exile will be brief, but those sent to Carville are more prisoners than patients and their disease has no cure. Instead she must find community and purpose within its walls, struggling to redefine her self-worth while fighting an unchosen fate.

Kritters Thoughts:  Who knew that leprosy was not just in the Bible?  Based on a real leprosy community in Louisiana with fictional characters, this book did for me what I love historical fiction to do - makes me want to dive deep into google and learn all the things about something/someone that I knew nothing about.  

Mirielle West is the wife of a film star and after a few medical mishaps, she is diagnosed with leprosy and is shipped off to a community where many patients have been living for different lengths of time with the hope of a cure so they can return home.  Mirielle West has quite the character journey and I enjoyed watching her grow and evolve along with the other patients that were in the community.  

This is my second Amanda Skenandore book and I hope to catch up on the backlist and anticipate the future books.  I loved how she built the characters and the surrounding and the ride she took us on! 

Rating:

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Review: The Fields by Erin Young

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Pages: 352

Format: ARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Some things don't stay buried.

It starts with a body, a young woman found dead—torn to bits—in an Iowa cornfield on one of the few family farms still managing to compete with the giants of Big Ag. This is the heart of the Corn Belt, where drones spray crops from above and corn is perfected in labs to grow faster, better. When Sergeant Riley Fisher, newly promoted to head of investigations for the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office, arrives on the scene, an already horrific crime becomes personal when she discovers the victim was a childhood friend, connected to a traumatic event in her own past.

Fisher's investigation grows complicated as more victims are found, each murder more harrowing than the last. The crime spree grabs headlines and becomes a factor in the reelection campaign of the governor, a friend of Riley's father. Suddenly, this sleepy part of farm country is at the center of a media storm and Riley isn't sure who she can trust anymore.

Kritters Thoughts:  Whenever I am in a reading slump, I usually gravitate to mysteries as the pacing can get me back into my reading game.  The pacing of this book was great, from page to page and chapter to chapter, I wanted to see where this would all end up.  But the thing that didn't completely work for me, was the amount of storylines trying to maintain in one book.  I felt as though the author was piling and piling on and at a certain point it seemed too much.  

A young woman is found dead in a corn field and not just any corn field but one that is fighting the formation of big agricultural companies and trying to keep farming small, so they already have enough drama on their hands before a dead body is found.  This is the first murder of a few that happen in the book and slowly but surely the reader finds out how everything is connected.  Following a young investigator Riley Fisher, the reader is taken on a ride to solve all of the things.  

The first in a series of two that follow Riley Fisher as she investigates crimes in her home town and I did enjoy her as a character so hope to read the second one and see if the plot gets a little more pulled together in a sequel.  

Rating:

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Review: A Fatal Inheritance by Lawrence Ingrassia

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Pages: 320

Format: audiobook

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Weaving his own moving family story with a sweeping history of cancer research, Lawrence Ingrassia delivers an intimate, gripping tale that sits at the intersection of memoir and medical thriller Ingrassia lost his mother, two sisters, brother, and nephew to cancer—different cancers developing at different points throughout their lives. And while highly unusual, his family is not the only one to wonder whether their heartbreak is the result of unbelievable bad luck, or if there might be another explanation. Through meticulous research and riveting storytelling, Ingrassia takes us from the 1960s—when Dr. Frederick Pei Li and Dr. Joseph Fraumeni Jr. first met, not yet knowing that they would help make a groundbreaking discovery that would affect cancer patients for decades to come—to present day, as Ingrassia and countless others continue to unpack and build upon Li and Fraumeni’s initial discoveries, and to understand what this means for their families. In the face of seemingly unbearable loss, Ingrassia holds onto hope. He urges us to “fight like Charlie,” his nephew who battled cancer his entire life starting with a rare tumor in his cheek at the age of two—and to look toward the future, as gene sequencing, screening protocols, CRISPR gene editing, and other developing technologies may continue to extend lifespans and perhaps, one day, even offer cures.

Kritters Thoughts:  I will always enjoy taking in non fiction via audio.  This book accompanied me on many trips to the grocery store and hours cleaning my sweet home.  

Lawrence Ingrassia is not only a journalist, but a subject matter in his book.  He comes from a family that has been greatly impacted by cancer and through telling his family's story he is able to share how cancer research slowly came about to find that there is some hereditary nature and some testing for genes to predict if a patient is more prone to developing cancer then others.  

There were so many moments when I was reading this book that I kept remembering that this research was happening during my lifetime and I was so disappointed at the many lives that were affected by the slow progress of research.  AND those many people that didn't know about the preventative tests that could have given them information where they could have made different decisions with their lives.  When we are in a time where information is swirling 24/7 at the highest speed, to know that there is medical information not getting into the hands that need it, was sad to read about.  

After finishing this book, it made me want to look and find more non fiction medical books to dive into.  

I read the audiobook version of this one and the narrator was great.  He shared the story with feeling and compassion in providing very difficult stories of these families who have been so gravely impacted by cancer.  

Rating:

Audiobook Challenge 2024: 3 out of 24

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Review: The Idea of Love by Patti Callahan Henry

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Pages: 256

Format: ARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  As we like to say in the south: "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story."

Ella's life has been completely upended. She's young, beautiful, and deeply in love—until her husband dies in a tragic sailing accident while trying to save her. Or so she'll have everyone believe. Screenwriter Hunter needs a hit, but crippling writers' block and a serious lack of motivation are getting him nowhere. He's on the look-out for a love story. It doesn't matter who it belongs to.

When Hunter and Ella meet in Watersend, South Carolina, it feels like the perfect match, something close to fate. In Ella, Hunter finds the perfect love story, full of longing and sacrifice. It's the stuff of epic films. In Hunter, Ella finds possibility. It's an opportunity to live out a fantasy – the life she wishes she had because hers is too painful. And more real. Besides. what's a little white lie between strangers?

But one lie leads to another, and soon Hunter and Ella find themselves caught in a web of deceit. As they try to untangle their lies and reclaim their own lives, they feel something stronger is keeping them together. And so they wonder: can two people come together for all the wrong reasons and still make it right?

Kritters Thoughts:  A Patti Callahan Henry romance story has full characters in a great setting and realistic ups and downs.  Ella has just had her world turned upside down by a man and doesn't know how to put her feet on the ground and then she bumps into Hunter.  Hunter has come to this small town in South Carolina to work on his next project, but upon meeting Ella he doesn't want to tell her the truth about his project, so he lies.  BUT Ella is lying also.  

I loved these characters.  Ella and Hunter were fantastic characters AND the supporting were characters were just as great.  Patti Callahan Henry really creates these characters that you want to get to know and want to see how their arc will go.  With the reader knowing all the things, you can watch as these two discover the truth and see how they react - and I loved it!  

Even though you know with a romance that we will end happily ever after, I still enjoyed the journey of this book.  For the romance genre, if the journey isn't worth it then the story is just ok.    

This book made me want to get all caught up on Patti Callahan Henry's backlist.  

Rating:

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

July 2024

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A busy month of plans, not many quiet moments of reading.  I had lots of fun plans this month and it was full of new experiences, but not many times where I could curl up with a book.  A quieter August is on deck!   

1. A Fatal Inheritance by Lawrence Ingrassia

2. The Lincoln Deception by David O Stewart

3. The Fields by Erin Young

Total pages read, clicked and flipped:  934

Where Have I Been Reading?:

Iowa
 

Review: The Summer of Fall by Laura Lippman

Publisher: Scribd Originals

Pages: 62

Format: eARC

Goodreads:  “Lucky! I’M LUCKY, GODDAMMIT!” So Laura Lippman keeps telling herself throughout the course of a year when she seems everything but. Her marriage crumbles; a beloved friend dies suddenly; her sister’s health fails. Everything and everyone is falling apart. The calamities reach a symbolic climax in the summer of 2022, when she and her mother both suffer bad falls. (Her mom is ninety-one; Lippman herself is merely “exceptionally clumsy.”) Still, she insists, she is lucky.

And in many ways, she is. She has a great kid and a career she loves, and she’s healthy and more or less happy. Yet even a resilient optimist like her can’t deny that life’s catastrophes are indiscriminate and seem always to hit at once.

In this wry and honest memoir of a truly lousy time, she gives an intimate look at her private life — perhaps less hair-raising than her award-winning crime thrillers, but no less engaging. And it’s relatable. Even the most fortunate experience heartache, loss, and physical breakdown of some kind. Lippman’s account of her own hard knocks reminds us that, eventually, adversity comes for everyone.

But she has a more important message: While misfortune might not be a choice, how we respond to it is. Lippman chooses to be a happy warrior. When her friend Terry Teachout, the renowned theater critic for The Wall Street Journal, dies without warning in January 2022, she finds solace in the fact that he’d recently found joy in a new romance. When two friends make the spontaneous decision to marry during a writer’s workshop in Italy, she throws herself into the role of officiant, despite the flatlining of her own marriage. When she ruins her shoulder in a fall, she refuses to swap her fun shoes for something more sensible. She won’t let sorrow and pain get the best of her. Blessings abound, godammit, and there’s still so much to celebrate.

Kritters Thoughts:  I am a Laura Lippman fan, I have nowhere near read all of her books, but when I saw this book come across Netgalley I was excited to read some non fiction that Laura Lippman wrote and even more so wrote about her own life.  She was an avid writer but also journaled her own life and this little book came from her writing as she recounted a summer that was possibly one to not remember!  

With a separation/divorce, physical injury, family drama and more, after reading this book I wanted to go have a beverage with Laura Lippman and just gab about the ups and downs of life.  I loved that yes I read about a horrible summer, but also got a glimpse behind the curtain of the humanity of an author as they try to keep writing and working while life knocks them around.  

I would love to read more of these by other authors that I love and see both their personal life and professional life as they collide.  

Rating:

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Review: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

Publisher: Harper

Pages: 272

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.

Imprisoned for more than two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.

One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.

Kritters Thoughts:  A book I read solely because I saw that a mini series was created and I am a stickler for reading the book before watching the movie, the show or the whatever! So I picked up this book recently and read it and what a story.  I was glad that I could see someone's interpretation of it on screen and see how even the hardest of moments would be portrayed on a screen.  

Based on a true story, Lale Sokolov was a Jew who went to Auschwitz and eventually became the man who tattooed the incoming Jews; he aligned himself with the SS soldiers and was able to help his fellow men and women through various ways to survive the horrors that took place in Auschwitz.  Because of the way he took care of others, it saved his life so many times.  

It is hard to say I loved this book because most of it took place in a concentration camp, but to see humanity still trying to take care of each other in any way possible and to see a love story emerge, it was something else.  

Rating:

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

June 2024

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June is always a great reading month with extra hours spent enjoying the summer sun with a good book in hand.  I may have picked up a few books that had fewer pages just to keep the momentum going!   

1. The Last One by Alexandra Oliva

2. Blown Away by Nancy Mehl

3. Famous in Cedarville by Erica Wright

4. The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

5. Lovers at the Museum by Isabel Allende

6. All In by Mallory Ervin

7. The Summer of Fall by Laura Lippman

Total pages read, clicked and flipped: 769

Where Have I Been Reading?:

Wichita, KS

Auschwitz, Poland

New York City, NY

 

Review: The Last One by Alexandra Oliva

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Pages: 295

Format: ARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads: Survival is the name of the game as the line blurs between reality TV and reality itself in Alexandra Oliva’s fast-paced novel of suspense.

She wanted an adventure. She never imagined it would go this far.

It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens—but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it human-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them—a young woman the show’s producers call Zoo—stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game.

Alone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life—and husband—she left behind, but she refuses to quit. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all her survival skills—and learn new ones as she goes.

But as her emotional and physical reserves dwindle, she grasps that the real world might have been altered in terrifying ways—and her ability to parse the charade will be either her triumph or her undoing.

Kritters Thoughts:  A little bit Survivor tv show with a pandemic on the side and while this book was published in 2016, reading it in 2024 after a pandemic has really happened felt VERY surreal and added an extra element to my reading.  

Twelve contestants are dropped into the woods with camera men and producers, but are prepped to have days and challenges alone where they may not even know they are being filmed, so suspend belief a little, but not too far off from a truth.  With chapters that bounce back and forth in time without the reader getting info made for a few times of frustration, but once I got the gist, I enjoyed going back and forth in time.  While the chapters that take place more at the beginning challenge with all the contestants battling mixed in with the chapters that focus on Zoo/Mae as she is out on her own grappling with admitting to reality and slowly discovering what could have happened beyond the challenge.  

Without spoiling the book, I will have to say in general, I didn't love the ending.  I was left in such a place where I wanted one or more chapters to really feel like I could see Zoo/Mae off onto the next part of her adventure and life.  

Rating:

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Ballantine Books.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

May 2024

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Not one book finished in April - so so crazy!  With warm weather, I spent more days in May at the beach in my neighborhood with a few good books.  

1. We Can Only Save Ourselves by Alison Wisdom

2. The Colony Club by Shelley Noble

3. The Churchill Sisters by Rachel Trethewey

4. Real Americans by Rachel Khong

Total pages read, clicked, and flipped: 1,456

Where Have I Been Reading?:

New York City, NY

Review The Churchill Sisters by Rachel Trethewey (audiobook)

Publisher: St Martin's Press

Pages: 320

Format: audiobook

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Bright, attractive and well-connected, in any other family the Churchill girls – Diana, Sarah, Marigold and Mary – would have shone. But they were not in another family, they were Churchills, and neither they nor anyone else could ever forget it. From their father – ‘the greatest Englishman’ – to their brother, golden boy Randolph, to their eccentric and exciting cousins, the Mitford Girls, they were surrounded by a clan of larger-than-life characters which often saw them overlooked. While Marigold died too young to achieve her potential, the other daughters lived lives full of passion, drama and tragedy.

Diana, intense and diffident; Sarah, glamorous and stubborn; Mary, dependable yet determined – each so different but each imbued with a sense of responsibility toward each other and their country. Far from being cosseted debutantes, these women were eyewitnesses at some of the most important events in world history, at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam. Yet this is not a story set on the battlefields or in Parliament; it is an intimate saga that sheds light on the complex dynamics of family set against the backdrop of a tumultuous century.

Kritters Thoughts:  There are a few reasons why this audiobook completely worked for me.  First, I love listening to non fiction, I haven't been able to find the right fiction genre to work for me in audio form, still on the hunt.  I also love all things royal or royal adjacent and Winston Churchill was surely royal adjacent and to hear more about his family was so interesting.  I also love history, so to hear about Winston's daughters but also more about the events of the time was just great.  

About this book.  I went into this book knowing nothing about Churchill's family from his wife to his daughters, so all of this book was new information to me.  To hear about the strong women that were in his family and the things they did to support him and his efforts, but also the way he encouraged each of them to have their own avenues - I loved it!  I knew nothing about his wife and while this book didn't focus on her, she made appearances and this book inspired me to go find out more and read more about the woman who stood beside such an influential man.  

This book accompanied me on car rides to run errands, many hours cleaning the house, and some time prepping the garden for this year!  I love how an audiobook can join you in life and it feels like you are accomplishing so many things at once.  

Rating:

Audiobook 2024 Challenge: 2 out of 24

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

March 2024

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Just one book finished this month, ended up being a busy month with a lot of other things taking my attention - early garden prep, big projects at work, and a few other things!

1. The Children's Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin

Total pages read, clicked and flipped: 355

Where Have I Been Reading?:

Dakotas

Recipe Review: Creamy Garlic Mushroom Chicken

For recipes for March, I accidentally purchased too much chicken, so March will be the month of chicken! The first recipe I tried, was my first foray into dredging and pan-frying chicken.  While the meal itself was a hit, I want to try a different technique than what was in this recipe for pan-frying chicken the next time; using no egg and just dry ingredients was interesting, but when I make a recipe I stick to the instructions the first time around!   

I made this meal on a weekend when I had my favorite handyman - my dad at my house to make some fantastic custom closets.  It was such a joy to be able to feed him while he was making three closets of my dreams!  AND thank goodness it tasted way better than it photographed!  It even reheated well as leftovers.     

I then made the meal during the work week for just myself and tried the pan fry again and tried to see if it would maybe photograph better! This is a recipe that I can now keep in my back pocket, minus the need to have mushrooms and heavy cream on hand which I don't always have.  

February 2024

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A month where life went a little off course, but for good reasons. My reading and workouts went off from the goals I set for this year, BUT I have not one but two brand new custom closets built by my dad and I, and the designing and building were the best experiences. SO things can take a turn and then the first of March, new goals can be set!

1. The Opera Sisters by Marianne Monson

2. Trailed by Kathryn Miles

3. Data Baby by Susannah Breslin

4. The Presence of Absence by Simon Van Booy

Total pages read, clicked and flipped: 1,080

Where Have I Been Reading?:

Appalachian Trail, VA

California 

Recipe Review: Homemade Pasta Sauce

Three weeks in a row with pasta, BUT this one is extra special.  One reason is because my nephew Jacob was here to help make and taste test.  AND second because the pasta sauce was made from tomatoes that I grew in my garden last year and froze.  

My hope is that this is the first of many recipes that includes things from my garden and with four garden beds and a few grow bags, my 2024 garden should be bountiful.  

Now to the recipe.  I had low expectations as I am quite opinionated on pasta sauce, but this one quickly went into the notebook to use over and over again.  With the aid of my immersion blender (first-time use!) my tomatoes were easily thinned out and adding minimal seasoning, the tomatoes were the star of the show which made me even happier that they were fresh from the garden because are always 10 times better than store-bought.  

Jacob chose penne pasta and we added some meatballs and this was a great dish for a rainy weekend.