What’s New (October recap)

October flew by SO quickly. I think it’s because there were tons of days that still felt like summer and the girls and I took advantage of being outside as much as we could. We had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend (but busy), I am settling into my 3-day work week, and Halloween was so much fun this year!

I am excited for November to be here because I have a few projects I really want to work on, and of course, the excitement of Christmas is in full-force by the end of this month. So much to look forward to near the end of the year here 🙂

Linking up today with Kristen and Gretch for What’s New With You?

Here are a few photos of our October adventures:

We spent Thanksgiving weekend seeing LOTS of my huge extended family. It was great, but also a bit tiring, and we all ended up with a bit of a cold afterwards so that’s what happens 😉 We also took the girls to the new Ikea store (the first in Halifax in many, many years!) #mindsblown They were super excited. Brian built me a desk that weekend (which is where I am currently typing this!!!) and of course, we managed to find a playground or two to play on.

After that weekend, Brian had to go away for work for a few days so I held down the fort here while simultaneously losing my voice and coughing like crazy…haha. It was then that I discovered that the audio versions of many of our favourite picture books are on YouTube, and some are read by the author! #raisingreaders Lucy ended up listening to a lot of those that week (and is still totally obsessed) because my voice just couldn’t read to her.

I went to my first HUGE book sale the following weekend and picked up a few things, while Brian took the girls to the Discovery Centre and I met them there. It was fun!! We also got a chance to go back to the farm where Molly had fallen in love with the baby donkey, and this time they got to go in the pen and pet the animals more, which was a blast. This little llama is sooo fun.

Towards the end of the month, the focus of our time, was, of course, on Halloween. I have a post coming about this tomorrow but our girls have recently developed a huge obsession for owls so I made their costumes this year. I made one for myself too although I prefer to think of myself as more of a Hedwig and the girls are trying to be owls from their favourite chapter book series, Owl Diaries. I absolutely did not expect these costumes to consume as much of my time as they did. Haha. BUT it was worth it because they loved their costumes. They wore them to the Halloween howl at Molly’s school, to their last race of their series, and the wore them to school on Halloween and out that night. This was the first year that both of our girls really truly embraced trick-or-treating although they were both pretty tired too. It was a fun night! Friends of ours offered to come over and help pass out candy, so it was great to catch up with them too and to see my niece all dressed up 🙂

I finished a few awesome books this month that I can’t wait to talk about in a few days for SUYB!! I also got some Christmas presents bought, ran a 10k race (the last one for 2017), and met up with a few friends I hadn’t seen in awhile. All in a month’s work! Anyway, what’s new with you? Anyone doing NaNoWriMo? Anyone have anything fun to share?

Some Bookish Thoughts

This might not be uncommon, but I don’t really have a lot of real-life friends to talk books with. My mom and I talk about books a lot, and a few friends have told me that they really like my recommendations or that they picked up a book because of my instagram post about it, etc. I am dying to be in a real life book club, but I am reluctant to start my own. As far as I know, none of my friends/family in real life like to review books or talk about them constantly. Fortunately, I have a lot of online friends who LOVE to talk about nothing but books. 🙂 Lately, I am just dying to talk about all my thoughts about reading with someone – hence this post. It’s a bit all over the place, but so are my thoughts these days.

I read this post earlier in the week and it really got me thinking about reading pressure and reading challenges. I’ve posted about reading challenges before, but it’s on my mind again lately. Overall, I like many things about reading challenges. I love the selection process, I love organizing some shelves on Goodreads and seeking out books on my TBR that I can fit into categories. I (almost) always start out a reading challenge with wonderful intentions. I love that I end up really broadening my horizons a bit when I select books for certain categories and it helps me delve into books I’ve always wanted to read but haven’t prioritized. It helps me organize what I’m going to read next, and it makes me feel like I always have a book to turn to if I’m not enjoying my current read. In particular, I love Erin’s book challenges because they last for 4 months and that gives me a lot of flexibility to read “challenge books” and other books at the same time.

What I don’t love is dictating my reading life by timelines; it’s stressful and that’s not the point of reading, in my opinion. For instance, I spent a chunk of time during Erin’s current challenge trying to enjoy a couple of books that I just did NOT like in any way. Eventually I gave up and just switched my choice for those categories, so it’s not as if it was a big deal in any way, but I still think I could have just not even bothered picking those books in the first place. I still have one book (Beach Music) to finish but I am loving it and I am certain I will finish it by next Tuesday. (If I don’t – I am also okay with that – I will still finish it next week and I am so, so happy to have finally read it). Thanks again to Steph for that recommendation years ago.

I also love yearly book challenges, but I kind of forget about them as the year goes on. I know it is possible to broaden your horizons without joining a reading challenge, but I can honestly say I would not have picked up certain books (The Count of Monte Cristo) this year without selecting it for a challenge (and I would have gotten 51 hours of my life back, haha, kidding). As an Obliger, I think I really need the accountability of a reading challenge to encourage me to read books from my backlist. Each year, I really love striving to meet my goodreads reading challenge goal and I love seeing my friends meet that goal too – no matter what the number is!

As we near the end of 2017, I am trying to really wrap up some of my “reading goals” for the year. Kristen’s post earlier this week made me think about the books that I have on my virtual and real shelves that I was excited to buy or borrow and haven not gotten to yet. I don’t have as many on my actual bookshelf because I’m not a HUGE book buyer, but there are probably still at least 15-20 books on my shelf that I haven’t even read yet. Like Kristen said, buying a book can almost doom that book for me because there is no time crunch to read it. Library books are due back, so I have to read them when they are in my possession (or send them back unread, which I have only started doing recently). My goal in November is to really get through my own books before ending off 2017. That includes these books:

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Castle of Water by Dane Huckelbridge
A Conjuring of Light by V. E. Schwab
Origin by Dan Brown (I couldn’t resist this – I love the Robert Langdon books)
The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin

and these on my Kindle/Audible/*Netgalley:

Reading People by Anne Bogel (halfway through this)
Artemis by Andy Weir*
Winter Solstice by Elin Hildebrand* (this series is a fun one for Christmas and not TOO Hallmarky)
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacquelyn Woodson
The Austen Escape by Katherine Reay*

I also have a few library books that will be coming in and I am tentatively hoping to get through Golden Son and Morning Star because Pierce Brown has a new book coming out in January 2018 and I already have a hold on it (this is ridiculous in some ways, haha). I have a few really fun plans for book posts on this blog before 2018: a wrap up of my favourite books for the year, another analytics post, some library hacks, books that are better on audio, and two more Amazing Authors posts.

If you’ve made it this far, here are few fun book talk links from around the web:

Would you rather bookish edition <–some of these were hard!!!

I just downloaded this library extension for Chrome…it tells you if the books you are viewing on that page are at the library. It’s awesome – I have my library added to my links for buying books on Goodreads, but sometimes I have to play around with the edition in order to actually find information and this extension makes it WAY easier!!!

This post about life skills of voracious readers is great.

Sometimes reading fatigue is a real thing. This post was super interesting.

This would be kind of a fun Halloween craft. Maybe next year 😉

Am I the only one out there who thinks about and plans my reading this much? I blame goodreads, blogging, Netgalley, The Book Club, and WSIRN. 🙂

Show us Your Books – Recent Reads

Happy Tuesday!! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with a lot of visiting with family and friends and lots of time outside because the weather was beautiful. I am so thankful for all of the joy and love that surrounds me in my life.

Although I did read some great books lately, I feel like I’m in a bit of a reading rut. I have hundreds of “good books” around me on my kindle or nightstand but sometimes I just feel like sleeping instead of reading at night. I’m sure it will resolve itself soon enough, I just need to hit on the right book. Little Fires Everywhere kept me pretty enthralled for longer than usual this weekend, so I’m happy about that. I just need to put my phone in the other room and focus on my books. I got a bit carried away with library holds too and just decided to return a bit chunk of them and get them another time. I have a few books on my shelf that I’m dying to get to, and a few Netgalley books that I want to review this fall, so I need to prioritize those for a bit. I’m sure some of you can relate 🙂

As usual, linking up with Steph and Jana to share some thoughts on the books I’ve read lately 🙂 Happy 3 Year Anniversary to the best link up out there!!!

Highly Enjoyable Books

A Wrinkle in Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, #1)

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of my most beloved books of my childhood, and it was quite a treat to revisit it as an audiobook. I have fond memories of getting this book taken away from me by my dad because it was too late at night and I could not put it down despite my parents telling me numerous times. I had to dig it out of his “hiding place” for it above the fridge the next day after school to finish it. haha. The story holds up quite well and the characters are so fun and different. It’s not for everyone because the fantasy elements are a bit out there, but I love this series. (Read for banned books category for Erin’s challenge).

Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

I read this book as a child and recently enjoyed the audio version, which was quite well done. I can see the relation between Emily and Anne, and I love them both but I do feel that Emily has a bit of a stronger desire to please her caregivers, at times at least, which I can relate to. L. M. Montgomery’s writing is so wonderful and I really love this trilogy about Emily of New Moon. Hearing the audiobook also brings back fond memories of the CBC show that we used to watch every Sunday evening 🙂

Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Steph mentioned this series awhile ago, and since I have the 8th (I think) book on Netgalley, I wanted to start at the beginning and get through a few of them despite hearing that they can be read out of order. This was an intense book and I can absolutely see myself binging on the series at some point. I really like Kate Burkholder. I liked this book quite a bit; as much as you can like a situation that is as messed up as this one was. 🙂

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was unlike anything I’ve ever read and it was super quick and enjoyable and different and heart-wrenching. I read this in a single sitting and I loved the format, which was in verse and would be SO fun for about a 12-13 year old who needs something to hold their interest when reading.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I must first say that this narration was quite well done, and I enjoyed listening to this audiobook very much. That being said, this is not my favourite Austen novel. I felt so sad for Fanny throughout the book, and so disappointed about how she was treated by so many people even though I know it wasn’t uncommon at that time and I know that that was the whole point. I really liked the writing and found it quite lyrical and lovely. I think the characters just didn’t click for me the way that her other novels do. Still hoping to check out the film version sometime and this book also concludes my reading of Austen’s novels, so I am quite pleased with that!!

Books that were Good, but not Great

Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

This book wasn’t too bad even though it was pretty messed up. I was interested in the psychological parts of it since that is my background ;). It had been awhile since I’d read an unreliable narrator book (or so it felt like), so it was good that way. I just didn’t care very much about the characters and found parts of it to be a little bit too “meh”. Overall, not a bad read, but nothing too particularly special and writing about it now a month later, I’m realizing it didn’t stay with me as much as other books have.

Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I think I like the movie a little bit better, but the audio version of this was quite good and different from the movie. It will be fun to share with our girls in a few years. (read for Erin’s challenge – Disney category)

Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This book was pleasant enough to read, and I appreciated the alternating storyline and all of the characters (especially Ruby!). It felt like it was lacking a little something at times but overall the themes and the story were worth the read. It’s not A.J. Fikry by any means, but it wasn’t a bad read at all. It was definitely thought provoking in regard to politics, feminism, and stigma/discrimination. (Read for the yellow cover for Erin’s challenge; thank you to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book by a wonderful author.)

Until Love Do Us Part by Anna Premoli
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was okay, but not my favourite for this genre. It had a bit of the hate-to-love storyline, but it was just missing a bit of a connection and parts were confusing. The writing wasn’t the highest quality, but the plot was enjoyable and happy enough. Thank you to Netgalley for the copy of this book.

New York, Actually by Sarah Morgan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is such a cute romance series and I liked this one a lot. I read this and Until Love Do Us Part back to back, and actually they are similar in many ways (Manhattan setting, etc) but I much prefer Sarah Morgan’s writing. This series doesn’t have to be read in order at all but the side characters are often reflected in other books.

Currently working on: Beach Music (still loving it but it is long!), Little Fires Everywhere (Had to bump it up because it was a 7-day library loan – really good so far), and The Four Tendencies. I’ve also read 6 chapter books to the girls and have read Julia Donaldson’s books about 50,000 times lately as well as reading French books with Molly 🙂 Lots of reading going on!! haha.

What have you read lately?!?

What’s New and Exciting over here

Completely unedited sunrise this morning from my back deck 🙂

Since I missed the last link up with Kristen and Gretch, I knew I wanted to be sure to post this month, even if I am a day late linking up!!! August and September are always extremely busy months in our family and this year was no exception. Sometimes I’m just a bit too busy living life to blog about it, haha 😉 Instead of recapping the last couple of months, I’m going to do a general update on some things that are currently new and exciting via some photos.

Fall has arrived in Nova Scotia – last week it was 30°C on Tuesday and 10°C on Wednesday and pouring rain on Thursday. The wind is getting chillier and the humidity is gone. I’m not complaining. I love fall. I feel SO much happier walking/running/playing outside in the fall than in the heat of summer, and I feel like I have a bit more energy or something too. It’s been nice!!

Of course, Molly started back at school this month and also turned 6! Lucy started preschool two mornings a week. She loves it.

We are getting into the routine of working part-time. My three year old is having a LOT of extra mommy time, and she is loving it. She is constantly cuddling with me every single time she sees me and I love her for it – no one else in my family is very cuddly. haha. My 6 year old is feeling a bit left out since she’s at school when I’m home with Lucy, but we are working on making our time together more special too. Last week, I took both of them to a nearby petting zoo and playground and they LOVED it.

I am HIGHLY enjoying taking a French course for work. My professor is enthusiastic, energetic, and quite funny. It’s beginner level, and a review of the exact same course that I took in 2014 but I am enjoying being immersed in this language for 3 hours/week. If you’re looking to spend a bit of time learning a new language, I can’t recommend the app Duolingo enough. It is really fun and doesn’t take long to make progress!!

We have tried tons and tons of new recipes this month because Brian has jumped on the low carb high fat train with me. I am feeling quite a bit more motivated and successful having him change his eating habits too. For him, it has really involved drinking less beer and less treats, so it’s not super deprivation or anything but we have obviously indulged in a treat or two here or there. A few favourite recipes that I hope to share soon include pad thai made with cabbage noodles, spaghetti squash alfredo with chicken, and a delicious fall soup.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and I can’t wait to chat books next Tuesday. I am working on a new balance because I certainly don’t get tons of reading done on the days I am home with the kids now, but we have been plowing through some audiobooks so I’m content with that new normal. For awhile there, I really felt like I had to listen to a particular genre on audio (i.e. classics, non fiction, etc) and while I still prefer those overall, I am enjoying pretty much anything I can get my hands on on audio now. Also just listened to Deadly Manners this week with Kristen Bell and it is intriguing so far! Definitely check it out if you are looking for a fun murder mystery podcast. It reminds me a bit of Clue.

We went to Antigonish to visit my grandmother last weekend and celebrated my 10 year university homecoming at St. FX. It was great to see a few friends and be around the campus and see family too. This weekend is Canadian thanksgiving, so we have Monday off work and we are spending a lot of time with extended family all weekend. Can’t wait! The leaves are changing colour and the province looks absolutely beautiful at this time of year.

Hope you all have a great weekend!!!

Amazing Authors series: Louise Penny

Welcome to the first post in a blog series that I’m going to call Amazing Authors. My plan is to highlight a few authors that I absolutely love but only if I’ve read most if not all of their work. If I am ever asked about my favourite author, my default response would be J.K. Rowling because her series changed my reading life and Harry Potter is absolutely the series I have re-read the most in my life. However, today’s author has become a VERY close second favourite, and I am happy to chat about her series today.

When we first made plans for our “epic family vacation” this past summer, which included driving from Halifax to Toronto, we were quite excited to visit friends along the way. On the way back, we had originally thought we would visit Brian’s best friend about 4 hours out of the way in Ontario (but worth it). When we then touched based with them and realized that wasn’t going to work out on the weekend we were driving through, our plans opened up and I had a brain wave in which I decided I just absolutely HAD to visit Knowlton, Quebec…home of Louise Penny.

In case you haven’t heard me rave about her before, Louise Penny is a wonderful Canadian author who has experienced great success worldwide with her best-selling Inspector Gamache series. I think it was Modern Mrs. Darcy (or her podcast) that first pointed out this series to me, and I flew through the first 12 books in about 4 months last year. The first few books were not exactly favourites of mine, but I agree with many other readers that the series really takes off around book 4 and the last few have been absolutely un-put-down-able for me. Unfortunately, if anyone asks, I usually recommend reading the series in order, and I know a lot of people who have stopped at book 1 (which is totally your call! You do you!) when they really get better later on. I was overjoyed to have read Glass Houses, this summer’s release in the series, via Netgalley, earlier this year, and it was an amazing addition to the series.

As I started to look for places to stay near Knowlton in an attempt to convince Brian that it was totally worth it to drive a couple hours out of the way to visit a town where an author lives, I realized that the date we were looking at being in Knowlton was the exact date of Louise Penny’s BOOK RELEASE EVENT for Glass Houses. I basically squealed when I realized this and knew that we absolutely had to try to make it work, and we did. We booked a fun campground nearby, and we drove 7 hours from Toronto to Knowlton that day (it actually took more like 8 hours with a brutal traffic accident on Highway 401), and we arrived in a quaint little town that it reminiscent of Three Pines that was gorgeous and packed to the brim with fellow Louise Penny fans.

Since we live in a small-ish city in eastern Canada, there are not a LOT of opportunities to meet famous authors. Similarly, we don’t always host huge bands for concerts (the reason why we travelled to Toronto in the first place was to see Coldplay live), and we don’t have major professional sports (Brian caught a Blue Jays game in Toronto, too). I think I’ve only ever met a couple of authors in my life – one being a local author in elementary school whose event has stayed with me for many years, and another being Diana Gabaldon in Halifax 10 years ago, which was great, but I hadn’t read the entire Outlander series at that point (and I still haven’t finished it), so I was tagging along with a friend at that event. I didn’t really know what to expect out of this event, but it surpassed all of my expectations.

Unfortunately, due to the traffic incident, I missed the first part of the event when Louise Penny spoke to the audience. I did, however, have the opportunity to meet her and tell her how much I loved her series and Glass Houses! They also had tons of volunteers and staff from Brome Lake Books to take pictures.
I was so impressed with Louise Penny; she signed books and chatted with fans for at least 3 hours (I waited for probably 2 hours myself) and took photos too. Since I was waiting in line with strangers (my family was at the campground, luckily for the kids), we all got to chatting about books in general and the Gamache series and a wide range of other topics. While I waited, I was trying to figure out how I could get one picture taken with the author since I was there on my own. Not to worry – I ended up with about 20 photos from a photographer volunteer that I could even turn into a video of the 3 minutes I spent chatting with her. LOL. See? Here are the majority of the pictures of me with Louise Penny:

I can’t fully explain why I love this series so much. Each book has a murder story, and Chief Inspector Gamache and his team end up solving it. That being said, it really limits the books if they are described as murder mysteries because there is SO much more going on in these pages. The characters and the setting are endlessly fascinating. The types of scenarios that Louise Penny comes up with have blown my mind. There is a steady undercurrent of political corruption going through a few of the books in the series, and each book is unique but similar too. Her writing is poetic and showcases a lovely area of my beautiful country. I’ve often wondered if I love the books so much because I resonate with Quebec as a part of Canada, but I don’t think that encompasses my feelings enough.

Overall, I would not hesitate to recommend this series to anyone, but don’t start with Glass Houses. As I said, I feel that the books really start to pick up around book 4 and I would even argue that you could skip books 2 or 3 if you really want to get a sense of the appeal but didn’t love the first book. The author herself says that the books are meant to be standalone novels, but I don’t think you would enjoy any of the richness of the characters if read out of order.

My personal favourites in the series are How The Light Gets In (so intense), A Great Reckoning, The Beautiful Mystery, and The Nature of the Beast (I found this one so creative). Glass Houses is up there too.

Side note: if this is something you care about at all, the books are also absolutely gorgeous (see below!)

You can check out the whole Gamache series here. Some of the books have different titles in Canada vs. the US vs. overseas, but the first one is Still Life. Have you read any of these books? Do you have any beloved authors to share with me? I hope to do a few more of these posts in the future to highlight some authors that might be unknown to people!

PS: All of these thoughts are merely my opinion. Not every book is for everyone. If you have no interest in reading the series, we can still be good friends. 😉

18 Things Before 2018

For some reason, I feel substantially more motivated in September than I do in January. I love the start of the new year in January and all of the goals to accomplish in a calendar year, but truth be told, January is SUCH an unmotivating month where I live. It’s not easy to start to develop fitness goals when it’s -30C outside for the next 3 months and there’s a pile of snow 6 ft high in your driveway (this is an exaggeration but not too far off). It’s harder to find fresh and delicious veggies too. However, I love setting reading goals and writing goals in January, and it is a good time for decluttering and organizing.

This year, September feels like a fresh start. Next week, I am switching to a permanent part time position in my current job. When this came up as an option for me as my full-time contract was ending, I talked to Brian about it and we both decided that this is right for us right now. Our younger daughter will now have the chance to go to preschool, and I’ll have more time with both of them. I’m also hoping to have more time for ME. (and maybe a cleaner house, too :)). It’s very exciting and very motivating overall.

All of this being said, September is feeling great so far. We are eating quite healthy and making real lifestyle changes. I have been running more than I did in the summer heat. I’m getting back into reading after vacation left me drained. I have more energy, and I am sleeping better. I am nurturing my relationships as best I can. I am hoping to get back into blogging more too and I have some fun updates in mind.

So here are 18 things I’d like to accomplish before 2018 (thanks for the inspiration for this post, Steph!)

1) Complete my Goodreads goal. I know, I know, quality over quantity, etc. Actually, this should be no problem if I keep reading at my current rate, but I always read a bit less when I’m not working full time because I am parenting more, and I don’t have as much commuting time to read (Right now I’m at 76/100).

2) Beat my 10K time from 2015. I’m aiming to do this at the end of October in my last race of 2017.

3) Par down my wardrobe. I don’t think I’m ever going to be cut out for a capsule wardrobe, but working only 3 days a week means I don’t need quite as many “office” outfits.

4) Develop a new budget and stick to it. Our finances will change a bit with my work situation, but there’s no reason we can’t stick to a new normal.

5) Sort my way through the ultimate homemaking bundle I purchased earlier this year and start utilizing all of the resources.

6) Read and implement suggestions from The Four Tendencies and Reading People. I’ve been anxiously awaiting both of these books and pre-ordered both of them to have on my shelf. Can’t wait to learn more about personality and achieving goals.

7) Carve out more quality time with Brian (at least 3 meaningful date nights before Christmas).

8) Set up and maintain a reasonable “office space” in our home for myself. Along with this goes blogging more regularly. Brian is all for building me a new desk, but I’m not committed to that idea yet.

9) Organize and set up a great system for the girls’ entertainment during the days I’m home: craft supplies, puzzles, etc.

10) Send out homemade Christmas cards to all of our loved ones

11) Finish a travel scrapbook with Molly about our trip to Toronto this summer

12) Actively participate in my new French course (starts next week, 3 hours/week for 8 weeks) and move on to the next level in 2018. So excited to get back into learning French.

13) Soak up all the fall things in our beautiful province (apple picking, hiking, soup-making, corn-mazing).

14) Create a clear chore chart for the girls and work on cleaning up after ourselves.

15) Finish Erin’s challenge. I have 4 books left: Beach Music, Dark Matter, and Young Jane Young (which I am almost halfway through), and Flowers for Algernon.

16) Make a dent in my Netgalley shelf.

17) Create some great playlists to enjoy at home for the kids and for myself. We have Google Play music (Spotify’s best friend/biggest competitor? haha) and I don’t use it nearly enough.

18) Back up all of the files from my 2008 MacBook (which has seen better days) and sort photos

I love fall! We’ve still had pretty summery weather here, and I’m not complaining, but this time of year brings so much joy to all of us and I am especially looking forward to this change in my work-life balance.

Here’s to ending 2017 with a bang!!

Happy weekend, everyone 🙂

September Show us Your Books (short book reviews)

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I posted in this blog. Great intentions and all that. Today is my older daughter’s 6th birthday!! I fed her carrot cake for breakfast and she was all excited going off to school. I can’t believe how fast the time flies.

I had a much slower reading month in August because of vacation and being busy. A lot of people might think, hmm, wouldn’t you read more on vacation? And I would say, yes, I would read more on vacation if I was alone or with my husband, but not when driving for 20 hours with 2 children 🙂 We also visited a lot of friends and family on vacation so we didn’t have much “down time” in the evenings because we wanted to visit with people we don’t see often enough!! It was great, and books wait for you, so it’s all good. 🙂 On a side bookish note, I got to meet one of my favourite authors (second only to J.K. Rowling, I think!!) in her hometown of Knowlton Quebec. It was an amazing experience that I hope to write about more soon.

Aside from all that, here are a few books I’ve read in the last month or so and haven’t mentioned yet here. Linking up with the lovely Steph and Jana today so that we can all explode our TBRs and cuddle up with some great book recommendations this fall 🙂

The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was SO much fun to read. It stayed with me too; I’ve thought about it off and on since I finished it.Travelling back in time with the goal of befriending Jane Austen? How awesome would that be?! It was definitely a super enjoyable read. It didn’t read like an Austen novel; it is much more “approachable” in regard to the language, but it was just so fun. I think if you are an Outlander fan, there is a bit of that element to it with the time travel although different subject matter. I can’t recomment this enough if you are an Austen fan, a fan of that time period, or even if you aren’t but you’re looking for a book that follows a slightly unique format.

Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Steph for this recommendation. This book was so good and definitely one of my better YA reads this year. There were so many emotions in this book and I really felt all of them along with the characters. In particular, I loved the extreme bookishness of the plot, I loved all of the bookstore chat, and the characters were just so well done.

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I listened to this while running, and it paints such a vivid picture of animals in captivity. I know my daughters will absolutely love this in a year or two. Heartbreaking and beautiful all at the same time. I can’t wait to listen to her other books now.

(finished this one for Erin’s challenge)

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I went back and forth between kindle and audible on this book, and eventually I just lost track of what was going on in the audiobook so I read it all in a day or two. I can’t say I love this as much as Jane Austen, but it has a much more serious feel to it than many of her books. It did start me down a wormhole of craving books set in that time period again, so that was nice. 🙂 There were a lot of sad moments in this book, but some hopeful ones too. I can’t imagine going through everything that Margaret did in a year, especially back in those days. It took me awhile to get on board with Mr. Thornton, but of course, like Mr. Darcy in some ways, he won me over 😉

If you like these types of books, this is a good one if you’ve finished all of Jane Austen and want something *somewhat* similar in writing and tone. If you don’t enjoy that era, this one probably isn’t for you, but I would still highly recommend the mini-series on Netflix if you’re curious!!! I really enjoyed that after I read this.

(finished this one for Erin’s challenge)

A Fine Gentleman by Sarah M. Eden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t realize this was the fourth in a series, but it was a complete stand-alone book. This book introduced some fun characters and a troubling situation for one of them, but there was a lot of wit, banter, and charm that made it quite fun to read. It was my first book by Sarah M. Eden but I’m certain that it will not be my last. She writes historical romance quite well, and this family is a fun one to follow along with. It was somewhat reminiscent of my beloved Julia Quinn and her Bridgertons series.

I spent a very pleasant few days re-reading Edenbrooke this month and I might pick up Blackmoore shortly after. I also re-read parts of Glass Houses after meeting Louise Penny.

I’m “currently reading” quite a few books, and I don’t know why I do this to myself but I think my reading mood is just all over the place right now during this busy season of the year. I started Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine but I had to return it to the library before I finished. Loved what I read though.

I’m over halfway through Emma in the Night (so far, so good, but haven’t had time to finish!), Beach Music, Young Jane Young, and listening to Mansfield Park and Flowers for Algernon <—my attention for that last one is truly waning but I selected it for Erin’s challenge and I am feeling determined! It’s not even that long!!

What have you read lately? What are you reading now? 🙂

Recent Summer Reads – Show us Your Books link up!

Today’s one of my favourite days to browse blogs: Show us Your Books day! Check out the link up at Steph and Jana’s blogs today. I read quite a few great books over the past month and I’m happy to share them today!

Highly Recommended Books (Depending on Your Taste, of Course)

What to Say Next by Julie Buxbaum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can’t decide if I liked this more than Tell Me Three Things, which I absolutely loved, but either way, it’s close. The author herself calls this one her favourite. The characters are adorable. They are dealing both with regular everyday teen-type stuff, and much heavier stuff. Books like this one are my favourite type of YA read for a reason. Definitely seek out Tell Me Three Things or this book if you like YA fiction that deals with difficult subject matter but feels overall optimistic and has wonderful characters and interactions.

My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was such a fun read!! Reminded me a bit of The Goose Girl for some reason. The whole departure from actual history was VERY fun. If you like YA historical fantasy, definitely add this to your list – it’s for sure one of the funniest books I’ve read this year.

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J. Sullivan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an intense read!!! It took me a little while to get into, but it was really full-speed-ahead from about the halfway point to the end. Despite it being quite a sad story, I did enjoy the writing immensely. The bookishness of this book was appealing, but the actual storyline and connections made came right out of left field for me and I was quite blown away when it was all revealed.

The Sisters Chase by Sarah Healy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was slow going for awhile and since I’d heard a few people rave about how amazing it was, I was a bit disappointed. I finished two other books while reading this one. However, about partway through it, this book became quite irresistible to me and I wanted to learn more about how the characters’ lives panned out. This is not an uplifting or happy book by any means, but it was a well-written character book about family sacrifice and the lengths one will go to protect their family and their past. The pacing was spot-on too – each chapter really moved the next one along and I flew through the second half in about a day. I don’t quite know how to classify this because it’s not really suspense, but it feels a bit suspenseful as you piece everything together. It felt a bit reminiscent of Summer Sisters to me although I’m not quite sure why.

Middle of the Road Books for Me

The Other Girl by Erica Spindler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book definitely held my interest and is mostly what I want out of this genre. I didn’t know who I could trust, and that element kept it moving along at a steady pace. I hadn’t read a suspense type book with police officers as main characters in awhile so I enjoyed that part too. Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advanced copy of this book.

Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a quick read, and it was a fun look at a family with some adorable quirks (the 4 year old? adorable!). I didn’t necessarily love that it portrayed Audrey coming to terms with her anxiety relatively quickly (although it is fiction, and I am biased working in the field of psychology). It was definitely a cute YA book. This was my first read by Kinsella and it was more or less what I expected but not my favourite YA by any means. Not sure that I will seek out any of her adult books right away.

Bookishly Ever After by Isabel Bandeira
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Super cute fluffy little YA read. Felt like it should have been a bit shorter but the ending was super adorable. 15 year old Heather would have been allllllll about this book but as an adult, the quality of my YA reads needs to be a tiny touch higher. It’s not the book, it’s me. Thanks for the advanced copy of this book Netgalley.

The Good Widow by Liz Fenton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Parts of this book were really quite suspenseful, but other parts were just a bit unbelievable and I generally did not feel extremely sympathetic to the characters despite them being in very sad scenarios. It felt a bit disjointed at times, but I finished it quite quickly once I got into it and wanted to find out how it ended so there were some great elements that kept the story moving forward. Thanks for the advanced copy of this book Netgalley.

Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a relatively short book and the alternating viewpoints kept my interest but also made it a bit confusing at times. Overall, I really appreciated the story but it might not be for everyone.

Currently still reading:
North and South
Flowers for Algernon (I am not finding it easy to read)
The One and Only Ivan
The Jane Austen Project

Looking forward to seeing everyone else’s summer reads!!!

What’s New: July recap

I feel like I say this every month, but July was a BUSY month!! haha. Really though, summer is always a bit busier than winter for us. We have soccer, Brian has baseball, and more friends want to get together. (I love it!!) Linking up with Kristen and Gretch to talk about what’s new lately!!

In July, we were also super fortunate that my brother and his girlfriend came to visit for a week from Calgary to celebrate my mom’s birthday! It was great to see them, and it was the first time Brian and my girls had met my brother’s girlfriend so that was special. We spent lots of time with them despite them staying at my parent’s house 30 minutes away and working a lot of the week. Another great thing that happened this month was that my sister, brother-in-law, and niece moved to the city! They are only about 10 minutes away from us, so it’s been great to see them more often and for my daughters to nurture their bond with their younger cousin.

Here are a few pictures from our month:

We celebrated Canada Day with some friends and it was great! Didn’t end up seeing any fireworks, but our kids are at a not-so-good age for that anyway. The day off work was certainly appreciated too.

My brother arrived a few days later, and we got some family photos taken while he was here, including this one of my little foursome:

Photo credit: Chantal Davie Photography

I had the opportunity to hear my cousin’s celtic string quartet one lunch hour

And got to spend lots of time with my favourite younger bro:

We spent an afternoon babysitting my niece, in which I realized that I am absolutely 100% satisfied with having 2 children:

The weekend after my brother left, we went camping for the first time with the girls and with some friends. It was wonderful, overall. The campground is 100% geared towards families and it has an outdoor pool, a huge playground, and an inflatable air pillow (pretty crazy). We had a campfire, and some drinks, and got dirty. It was also Water War weekend, so we went on a wagon ride and got totally completely soaked ( hoses, rubbermaid containers of water, and crying children)…it was kind of intense?!?! After we dried off, we were much better off. The girls slept pretty well, Brian and I did not, but we survived our first night in a tent as a family!!!

Here’s a view of the campground with the slip n slide set up and the inflatable pillow in the background:

A couple days after camping, Molly lost her first tooth when she spent the day with Brian’s parents!! It was so exciting for her. She actually somehow lost the tooth WHILE my mother in law was reading a book about the tooth fairy. LOL. It was fate. She was a bit freaked out but mostly excited.

My awesome hubby and I got to go on a random Tuesday night date out for sushi and to see The Big Sick (which I cannot recommend enough – I laughed so hard at some parts and cried a bit at others). Definitely go see that movie if you can!! It was worth it, in my opinion.

And on the last weekend of July, we went to see the Tall Ships in Halifax and got to hear Natalie MacMaster playing with Symphony Nova Scotia (this was amazing). It was a great atmosphere down on the waterfront despite being EXTREMELY crowded. Such a great way to end off the month. I was pretty tired the next day though 😉

Also read a bunch of awesome books this month which I will talk about next Tuesday and got to spend a bunch of time with friends and family. All in all, an amazing summer month. Gorgeous weather, wonderful people, and August is going to be amazing too. It’s my birthday month and we are taking a 12 day vacation to Toronto Ontario to visit family and see Coldplay and go to the Toronto ZOO. So excited 🙂

What’s new with you lately?!?!?

My 2017 Reading Life: Stats so far

We’re halfway through 2017!! I can’t believe how fast the time has gone by…like it always does. The days are long but the years are short, as Gretchen Rubin would say. 🙂

Last year, I did some analytics on the types of books I read in 2016. I decided to do a post about this at the halfway point of this year and although I was not at all surprised by some of my reading trends, it definitely gives me some insight into what I want to read the rest of the year.

As of June 30 (so, halfway through 2017 and a month ago now, oops…):

I’ve read 57 books of my 100 book goal

35% of my books read this year were published in 2017 and another 33% were published in 2016. Meaning 68% were published in about the last year or so. CRAZY. This is due to reading book blogs, listening to What Should I Read Next, reading Summer/Winter/2017 reading guides, and The Book Club facebook group. When you’re constantly hearing/reading about people’s thoughts on new-ish books, those are the ones you seek out. C’est la vie. I’m not complaining about this – I’ve loved many of the books I have read, but it’s not helping with the older books on my TBR list. Erin’s challenge will help me out with that, but then I also have about 20 books on my Netgalley shelf and a bunch of suspended library holds to get to at some point. So basically, 2017 will be the year of new releases for me. At least there have been some amazing ones!!! I think this is something that happens if you want to blog about books and fully support Netgalley & interact with publishers and authors. I don’t mind sprinkling in older books with new ones – that’s why the new ones are being written, after all!!!

Book Source:

No surprise here that my biggest source for books is the library. 🙂

It’s also no surprise that I’ve read new books by authors I love. I devoured Louise Penny’s new book Glass Houses (thank you, Netgalley!) in a few days despite wanting to savour it a bit. The same thing happened with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I read a couple of books by Katherine Center, whose book Happiness for Beginners was one of my favourites last year. I’m actually planning to write a series on the blog about beloved authors – the posts are starting to come together, so watch for those soon!

Book Format

I would normally have logged a few more audiobooks by this time of the year, but I spent 51 hours listening to The Count of Monte Cristo so I imagine I will have more audiobooks on my list in the latter half of 2017

I’m going to share another post soon with favourite quotes from books I’ve read so far this year, so check back for that!!!

I mentioned this before, but the top 5 books I’ve read so far this year are: Beartown, This is How it Always Is, A Man Called Ove, Glass Houses, and Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal.
Honourable mentions: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, The Lost Husband, Born a Crime (audio!), Maud, Tell me Three Things, Salt to the Sea, Red Rising.

What have your reading habits been like so far this year?