Summer Reading Celebration

Outlander fans will not be disappointed!! The latest installment in the series is as good as the rest.... the new characters are fully fleshed out and we fall in love again with the characters we've known for so long. I highly recommend this!!

Harry Potter At Home is a Pandemic initiative and I highly recommend that you enjoy it while you can! Harry Potter is read “by familiar voices” with a wide range of HP movie and stage actors reading chapters, and other familiar famous actors as well. It is so well done! And the readings with new voices make the words fresh again. This is available on a website as a video but I prefer accessing it using Spotify and just listening while I go about my day. It is free, and such a pleasure to listen to. Add this to your audiobook listening plans!

In the fourth and final installment, Daine and Numair are in the battle for their lives. The barrier between the Divine Realms and the human realms has completely collapsed. The immortals, hurroks and Stormwings, have been unleashed upon Tortall. These immortals have aligned with enemies of Tortall and Daine and her friends are losing the fight. Daine and Numair are up against a new and horrifying threat when they are plucked from the human realms and dropped into the Realms of the Gods. Trapped in the Realms of the Gods and desperate to return to their friends, they must travels across the Realms to the Dragonlands to enlist aid in their return. Along their route they discover more immortals, spies, animal gods and a plot by enemies of Tortall to not only overthrow order in the human realms but the Realms of the Gods. The human gods are fighting against their sister the Goddess of Chaos. The goddess of Chaos has gained powerful allies in the human realms to aid in tipping the scales against her god siblings. Will Daine and Numair find a way to return to their friends and help in the fight against not only their enemies but the enemies of the gods? I love this series so much! I love Daine, Numair, Alanna and so many other characters from this series!

By far the best series that takes place in Wonderland.

Fiction based on an actual historical event. A young black nurse discoverers that 2 of her clients were sterilized without the knowing consent of their legal guardians. That is the true event. Many of the things she encounters in post-seregation Alabama give an accurate portrayal of what life was like for poor black families, and even well off families during that time. Her emotional struggles and character are completely fictionalized. Well written and very enlightening.

4.5 stars. I loved this book. Rhett and Summer have my heart!

Solid 4 stars. That was quite good. Very French(?) So it was a little hard to get through. I liked the fantasy element and the forbidden romance plot. I also liked the competition aspect of it. Very Hunger Games x Top Chef (or...some other cooking competition show). Lol liked it

Dinosaurs in America after some calamity split America apart. The United States has been split into many little pieces of territory ruled by overlords, gamgs and evangelical states. Latif Tamim is an orphaned boy of war working for a Dino rodeo circus circuit. While he is working, a dinosaur in his care escapes and is fatally wounded then sent back to the past. Tif, is fired and forced to find employment elsewhere. He finds employment in the household of a high ranking evangelical pastor, to train a dinosaur which was purchased for his son. Upon inspection of the Carnotaur, it is old, maimed and ill suited for riding. The son threatens to kill the Carnotaur if Tif doesn't take it with him so he agrees. On his poisoned bike, he rides to join another rodeo and is taken in by Memphis Red's Tatterdemalion Circus. Tif meets Memphis, show woman and proprietor, Matilda, wrangler and dino whistler, Prince, buckaroo and Silver Clown, paralegal and engineer. In this rag tag band, Tif finds new home but yearns to save a friend from his past and see his Carnotaur taken care of, even if it means saying good bye to send it back to the past. I was really impressed with this short but detailed read. I could imagine the characters, the dinosaurs and even the tumultuous tension throughout Tif's journey through a war-torn Wild West post apocalyptic wasteland. The ending was satisfying and I would certainly read more from this author.

This was a great book if you like historical fiction, particularly WWII history. I have read many different historical novels set around the arena of WWII, but this one had a unique perspective. It is seen through the eyes of a young woman who goes to London with a friend after losing her own accommodations in the country. A good friend of her deceased mother puts her up and helps her land a job in a bookstore run by a crotchety old man (think, crotchety people are that way for a reason...but that is secondary to the story). She becomes very successful at what she does even though she is not a reader at the start of the book. The story unfolds against the backdrop of Hitler's blitz on London and England. So you get a front row seat to that harrowing year. I always learn new things and perspectives about the war when I read these books. This was a charming and generally heartwarming read based on real events including the impact of literature during the war.

Everything about Henrietta Lacks and her family was heartbreaking. Henrietta was lost to history and not even a footnote in her own story. Her genes were used over, and over again. Her DNA was used in so many breakthroughs in science and not even a mention. What a harrowing life. Henrietta's story was tragic, dying young of cancer and so riddled with tumors that pain was her only companion. What was more tragic was her children's mistreatment, malnuroshment and torture at the hands of the people that should have protected and sheltered them in their time of grief. Circumstances were just not on the Lacks family side. Most of the children were dead or imcarcerated before the book was even published. The author, Rebecca Skloot did so much research and talked to the family extensively even when said family was very against even that for a long time. This book was good and very interesting but oh so devastating. Please read this story, if not to hear this family's story but to get the true behind the immortal genes and where they really came from.