Book Scores

I checked-out many good books this month! In most cases, they were books others had recommended.

For my top two favorites I was on a long library waitlist. Then, wouldn't you know, each of them popped up on my Boundless app as available within three days of each other! Both are long listens too! Here One Moment is 15 hours 53 minutes; The Huntress is 19 hours 4 minutes. Each of them was worth every second. 

1. 4.8 - Here One Moment, Liane Moriarty
2. 4.6 - The Huntress, Kate Quinn
3. 4.5 - The Rom-commers, Katherine Center
4. 4.4 - Breaking the Silence, Diane Chamberlain
5. 4.4 - Nosy Parker, Lesley Crewe
6. 4.4 - More Harm Than Good #3 Kilteegan Bridge, Jean Grainger
7. 4.4 - When Irish Eyes Are Lying #4 Kilteegan Bridge, Jean Grainger
8. 4.4 - A Silent Understanding #5 Kilteegan Bridge, Jean Grainger
9. 4.2 - Every Moment Since, Marybeth Mayhew Whalen
10. 4.1 - Into the Water, Paula Hawkins
11. 4.0 - The Midnight Feast, Lucy Foley
12. 3.0 - The Husbands, Holly Gramazio

Here One Moment is an intriguing story, following several people who have been passengers on a flight from Hobart, Tasmania to Sydney, Australia. The narrator's talent and accent made the story captivating. I also admired the author's skill in offering the protagonist's profound thoughts about mortality and death.  

The Huntress is another story (like Kate Quinn's The Diamond Eye) that takes place in Russia during WWII and then jumps to post-war 1960's, where a team of people are tracking down Nazi war criminals to bring them to trial. Kate Quinn wrote other outstanding books like The Alice Network and The Briar Club, so if you haven't read any of these, put them all on your list!

I giggled aloud a few times while listening to The Rom-commers. It's about a woman who's a wanna-be screenwriter and a guy who is a screenwriter, but he needs help. From the get-go they're at odds with one another. But she's engaging, with self-deprecating good humor- a mostly light-hearted read. 

Nosy Parker is what's called a coming-of-age book about a 12 year-old girl, Audrey, who lives with her dad. It's 1967 and they're in Montreal, having just moved to the neighborhood. Audrey has to make new friends, who she finds are from diverse cultures, and for the most part, enjoyable to be around. Her primary objective though is to learn about her mother, who her dad won't talk about.   

Gotta recommend the entire Kilteegan Bridge series by Jean Grainger. Start with The Trouble With Secrets. Each book includes lovely pastoral scenes in rural Ireland and the small village of Kilteegan Bridge. The general store owners, the doctor, the rigid parish priest, young girls who think they're women, abuse, and love... all narrated with Irish accents. Each books is filled with real life scenarios, drama, and charm.

A few words about Every Moment Since... This is a fictional story about the night an 11 year-old boy went missing, and his family who have lived with not-knowing for 21 years. It touched me that in the forward, the author dedicates the book to several young boys whose disappearances have never been resolved. One boy mentioned is John Gosch, a Des Moines Register newspaper boy who disappeared in 1982. While preparing to deliver Sunday morning newspapers, he went missing from a neighborhood corner in West Des Moines... near where we lived from 1989 to 2012. 

I gave The Husbands a lower score because the whole storyline is fantasy - about a single woman who returns home from a night of drinking to find there's a man in her house claiming to be her husband. He's just come down from the attic, and when she sends him back up to get something for her, a different husband comes down the attic steps. Throughout the book, she's trying on new guys. Implausible. The ending made me feel "meh."      

Here are all the book covers, in score order.

Something Else

Every once in a while, a blog reader will let me know they've made a pattern or followed a tutorial on my blog. I always appreciate it when that happens, especially when they have pictures to share. 

Deb, who lives in Minnesota, saw my selvedge quilt on Pinterest, followed the picture to my blog, and used my October 2019 tutorial to make her own selvedge quilt. Colorful! Pretty!

Deb emailed to say, "I did not use all my selvedges, but most of my best colorful ones. I still have a basket full." Do you have a never-ending supply of selvedges too?

She did such a nice job, including those pretty quilted concentric circles. And don't we all love a black and white striped binding? So good!

If you'd like to make a selvedges quilt like Deb's, you can access my free pattern and tutorial HERE. When you make it, please share pictures with me so I can post them on my blog for others to see and enjoy. Thanks Deb for doing just that! 

Happy reading! Happy making! Linda