Reading Challenge/Goals for 2023--2024 link added

4/20 Book of Lost Name by Kristin Harmel-Inspired by an astonishing true story from World War II, this novel follows Eva a young woman who uses her talent for forgery to helpl hundres of Jewish children flee the Nazis. But Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children, who are too young to remember who they really are.

5/20 The Royal Nanny by Karen Harper- Charlotte “Lala” Bill arrives at Sandringham eager to begin as an assistant to the royals' head nurse. But when she witnesses the young boys' abuse at the hands of this nurse, she takes matters into her own hands, and forever shapes the landscape of royal nurses and nannies.

6/20 Winemaker's Wife by Kristen Harmel-The Winemaker's Wife is a stirring, immersive story set in France during the early 1940s, as well present day, that is told primarily from three different perspectives; Inès Chauveau, a young wife who after feeling neglected and misunderstood naively makes choices that have far-reaching, life-changing consequences.

7/20 Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse-A poem cycle that reads as a novel, Out of the Dust tells the story of a girl who stuggles to help her family survive the dust-bowl years of the depression. Fighting against the elements on her Oklahoma farm, she take on even more responsibilities when her mother dies in a tragic accident.

8/20 Remarkably Bright Creatures byShelby Van Pelt- Tova Sullivan has lived alone ever since herhusband died. Her house that used to be full of love now feels very empty. Her eighteen-year-old son Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat over thirty years ago, and Tova has never managed to get the answers she hoped for. Working in an aquarium she befriends an octopus that will have a significant inpact on her life.

9/20 The Forest of Vanishing Stars- Kirsten Harmel-After being stolen from her weathy German parents and reasied in the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, a young woman finds herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence is interrupted, however, when she happens upon a group of Jews fleeing the Nazi terror.

10/20 Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford-In Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, debut author Jamie Ford depicts the heartwarming friendship between Henry Lee and Keiko Okabe, a Chinese American boy and a Japanese American girl—both American citizens—whose ethnic backgrounds impact their destinies in drastically different ways during World War II.

11/20 Harry Potter and the Prisioner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

12/20 The Ways We Hide by Kristina McMorris-A World War II tale of an illusionist whose recruitment bt British intelligence sets her on a perilous, heartrending path. As a little girl raised amid the hardships of Michigan's Copper Country, Fenna Vos learned to focus on her own survival.

Sorry for the dump, all of these books were fantastic and all of them I've found here.
Thanks everyone!
 


37-53: Finished the C. J. Box Joe Pickett series. Good solid series, although some of the more recent books seemed a little far-fetched in terms of plot. Some are better than others, of course.

Breaking Point
Stone Cold
Shots Fired
Endangered
Off the Grid
Vicious Circle
The Disappeared
Wolf Pack
Long Range
Dark Sky
Shadows Reel
Storm Watch

Then on to re-read the Harry Potter series and have read books 1-4 so far. It's been awhile since I first read the series. Although YA Fiction, I still find this series to be quite good.
 
37-53: Finished the C. J. Box Joe Pickett series. Good solid series, although some of the more recent books seemed a little far-fetched in terms of plot. Some are better than others, of course.

Breaking Point
Stone Cold
Shots Fired
Endangered
Off the Grid
Vicious Circle
The Disappeared
Wolf Pack
Long Range
Dark Sky
Shadows Reel
Storm Watch

Then on to re-read the Harry Potter series and have read books 1-4 so far. It's been awhile since I first read the series. Although YA Fiction, I still find this series to be quite good.
Way to go! I am only through #14.5. Probably won't finish until the end of the year!
 
16/35 The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

After tragedy strikes, Hollis Shaw gathers four friends from different stages of her life to spend an unforgettable weekend on Nantucket.

It was a unique basis for the plot of the book, gathering her best friends from each stage of her life to help her through the death of her husband. But it kind of fell into the author’s usual, basic formula for her books. But it moves along quickly and is enjoyable enough.

(I had to go back and edit the number of books I’ve read. I had two books both listed as #13)
 


19/30 - Caleb's Crossing - Geraldine Brooks - 3.5/5

description from library website:
Once again, the author takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, she has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure. The narrator of the story is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island's glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe's shaman, against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb's crossing of cultures. Like the author's beloved narrator Anna, in Year of Wonders, Bethia proves an emotionally irresistible guide to the wilds of Martha's Vineyard and the intimate spaces of the human heart.


I decided to read this book by Geraldine Brooks because I loved her book, "Horse" and thought she did a great job with the story. I didn't like this book quite as much. This book was good but seldom had any sections of the story that got so interesting that I couldn't put it down. The time period is interesting, though. Life sounded a lot nicer on Martha's Vineyard than in Cambridge.
 
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Is this a sequel to one of her earlier books?
There is reference to Where are the Children.
Its written with someone, but she has passed, and I don’t know the whole story.

The legacy of the “Queen of Suspense” continues with the highly anticipated follow-up to Mary Higgins Clark’s iconic novel Where Are The Children?, featuring the children of Nancy Harmon, facing peril once again as adults.
 
There is reference to Where are the Children.
Its written with someone, but she has passed, and I don’t know the whole story.

The legacy of the “Queen of Suspense” continues with the highly anticipated follow-up to Mary Higgins Clark’s iconic novel Where Are The Children?, featuring the children of Nancy Harmon, facing peril once again as adults.
That was the first of her books that I read! Put in a request for the sequel. Thanks!
 
15/35 The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

Hannah receives a cryptic note from her husband, simply “Protect Her.” Then her husband goes missing and Hannah figures the note must have been referring to her teenage stepdaughter. Together they try to figure out what has happened to him and the reason for the note.

This was a really good suspenseful novel. It took some turns and kept me wondering but was all wrapped up in the end.
I really enjoyed this book!
62/75
4/5
 
Update time! I forgot the #s today

"The Invisible Woman", Erika Robak, 3 stars
In the depths of war, she would defy the odds to help liberate a nation...a gripping historical novel based on a remarkable true story from the bestselling author of Hemingway's Girl

France, March 1944. Virginia Hall wasn't like the other young society women back home in Baltimore--she never wanted the debutante ball or silk gloves. Instead, she traded a safe life for adventure in Europe, and when her beloved second home is thrust into the dark days of war, she leaps in headfirst.

Once she's recruited as an Allied spy, subverting the Nazis becomes her calling. But even the most cunning agent can be bested, and in wartime trusting the wrong person can prove fatal. Virginia is haunted every day by the betrayal that ravaged her first operation, and will do everything in her power to avenge the brave people she lost.

While her future is anything but certain, this time more than ever Virginia knows that failure is not an option. Especially when she discovers what--and whom--she's truly protecting.



"The Diva Delivers on a Promise", Krista Davis 4 stars
n a delicious new Domestic Diva Mystery from New York Times bestselling author Krista Davis, entertaining guru Sophie Winston is coordinating a convention for ghost kitchens in Old Town, Alexandria–and trying to keep a killer from making a deadly delivery…

Sophie is busy handling the first ever convention of the Association of Ghost Kitchens—restaurants that do delivery only—but she’s taking a little time out for a lunch meeting organized by A Healthy Meal. The group is dedicated to providing meals for children in need, and as a bonus, it’ll give Sophie the perfect opportunity to ogle the lavish Old Town home of socialite Geraldine Stansfield. Gerrie’s dining room is impeccably furnished, the table laden with gleaming crystal and prized china. If it weren’t for the dead man lying on the floor, everything would be perfect...

No one knows the victim—or at least, no one claims to. But a little snooping by Sophie reveals links to many local notables. In fact, not only was he a client of Geraldine’s late husband, an attorney—every member of the Stansfield clan knew the deceased. But only one knows what he was doing in Gerrie’s house.

Gerrie’s elegant abode looks spotless, but there’s plenty of dirty linen in those family closets. Now Sophie will have to get the killer to come clean before he spoils another appetite—for good...


"The Challenge, Danielle Steel (4 stars for Danielle Steel lovers, otherwise 2.5)


"The Front Porch Club", Michelle Major, 4 stars. Best for fans of Debbie Macomber or Sheryl Woods.
The drawback to having a picture-perfect life is that there’s nowhere to go but down—and Annalise Haverford is falling fast. Once, she was the self-proclaimed queen bee of Magnolia, North Carolina. Now her husband has been arrested for fraud, and she’s become an outcast in the shallow circles she used to rule. There’s only one affordable rental in town, and it’s owned by the woman Annalise got fired from a lucrative job.

Much as single mother Shauna Myer would like to refuse Annalise, who treated her like dirt on the bottom of her red-soled shoe, she needs that rent money. But when Shauna’s first love arrives in town, unraveling secrets she’d hoped to keep, Annalise becomes her unlikely defender. Meghan Banks, an elementary school art teacher whose quiet existence suddenly descends into chaos, is thrown an unexpected lifeline by Annalise, too.

As spring ripens into a sultry summer, the three spur each other on to share their fears and dreams, face new challenges, and seize second chances. Because no matter how turbulent life may be, it’s much easier to navigate those choppy waters when you’re buoyed by true friendship…


"The Plum Trees", Victoria Shorr 4.5 stars
Consie is home for a funeral when she stumbles upon a family letter sent from Germany in 1945, which contains staggering news: Consie’s great-uncle Hermann, who was transported to Auschwitz with his wife and three daughters, might have escaped. This seems improbable to Consie. Did people escape from Auschwitz? Could her great-uncle have been among them? What happened to Hermann? Did anyone know? These questions are at the root of Consie’s excavation of her family’s history as she seeks, seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz, to discover what happened to Hermann.


The Plum Trees follows Consie as she draws on oral testimonies, historical records, and more to construct a visceral account of the lives of Hermann, his wife, and their daughters from the happy days in prewar Czechoslovakia through their internment in Auschwitz and the end of World War II. The Plum Trees is a powerful, intimate reckoning with the past.
I just downloaded The Plum Trees
 
I found this regarding Where Are the Children now.

This story was written by Alafair Burke who partnered with Mary Higgins Clark on several novels before she passed away.
 
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I found this regarding Where Are the Children now.

This story was written by Alafair Burke who partnered with Mary Higgins Clark on several novels before she passed away.
Where Are The Children, I believe was her (Higgins Clark) first book. The setting of Where Are The Children Now is several years later after the original missing children have grown up & another child becomes missing bringing back the old doubts as to what really happened years ago.
 
#35/50 Hang The Moon by Jeannette Walls
Several people on here have read & recommended this one. It was good but not as good as I wanted it to be. I really liked the first part of the book but then after awhile it just seemed like too much was going on, lol.
#36/50 Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine
Gina Royal is the definition of average—a shy Midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and two adorable children. But when a car accident reveals her husband’s secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor—the ultimate warrior mom.
With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. Though still the target of stalkers and Internet trolls who think she had something to do with her husband’s crimes, Gwen dares to think her kids can finally grow up in peace.
But just when she’s starting to feel at ease in her new identity, a body turns up in the lake—and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. Gwen Proctor must keep friends close and enemies at bay to avoid being exposed—or watch her kids fall victim to a killer who takes pleasure in tormenting her. One thing is certain: she’s learned how to fight evil. And she’ll never stop.
I liked this one a lot & good news is there are 5 more in the series.
 
Continuing the adventures of Fiona Fleming in the Fleming Investigations Cozy Mysteries.

18/20 All In and Death (Fleming Investigations Cozy Mysteries book 4) by Patti Larsen.

19/20 Out With The Old and Death (Fleming Investigations Cozy Mysteries book 5) by Patti Larsen.

20/25 Tropical Destinations and Death (Fleming Investigations Cozy Mysteries book 6) by Patti Larsen.

21/25 Family Enterprise and Death (Fleming Investigations Cozy Mysteries book 7) by Patti Larsen.

New Goal: 25
 
16/30 - Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

Description:
"'That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.'

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson’s Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.

Frank begins the season preoccupied with the concerns of any teenage boy, but when tragedy unexpectedly strikes his family—which includes his Methodist minister father; his passionate, artistic mother; Juilliard-bound older sister; and wise-beyond-his-years kid brother—he finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal, suddenly called upon to demonstrate a maturity and gumption beyond his years.

Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God."

This was a great coming-of-age story. I really enjoyed it.
 
I am not going to finish another book between tonight and tomorrow, so here are my July reads:

114) Xingu: And Other Stories by Edith Wharton – Short Stories/Classic/Humor. 3.5/5

115) The Cape May Garden by Claudia Vance – Contemporary/Romance. 3.5/5

116) Bodymap: Poems by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha – Poetry/Disability. 4.5/5

117) Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau – Classic/Philosophy/ Politics. 4/5

118) Mimi Lee Reads Between the Lines by Jennifer Chow – Cozy Mystery. 4/5

119) Sula by Toni Morrison – Classic/Historical Fiction. 4/5

120) Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs by Jamie Loftus – Food/History. 4.25/5

121) Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier – Classic/Historical Romance. 4/5

122) You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron – YA Horror. 4.25/5

123) The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha – Essays/Social Justice/Disability. 5/5

124) Brewster's Millions by George Barr McCutcheon – Classic/Comedy. 3/5

125) The Violin Conspiracy: A Novel by Brendan Slocumb – Mystery. 4.5/5

126) Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer – History. 3/5

127) Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability edited by Jennifer Barlett – Poetry/Disability. 4/5

128) A Woman's Game: The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Women's Soccer by Suzanne Wrack – Sports/History. 4.25/5

129) The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick – Contemporary/Mystery. 3.5/5

130) The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson – Sci-Fi/Dystopian. 4.5/5

131) Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City by Jane Wong – Memoir. 4.5/5

132) The Catch Me If You Can: One Woman's Journey to Every Country in the World by Jessica Nabongo – Memoir/Travel. 3,75/5

133) The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Summer 2018 Selection) by Anthony Ray Hinton and Lara Love Hardin – Memoir/Social Justice. 5/5

134) American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795 by Edward J. Larson – History. 4.5/5

135) Wickedly Abled: Sci-Fi. Horror and Dark Fantasy by Disabled Authors edited by Sumiko Saulson – Anthology/Disability. 4/5

136) My Greatest Save: The Brave, Barrier-Breaking Journey of a World Champion Goalkeeper by Briana Scurry and Wayne R Coffey – Memoir/Sports/Disability. 5/5

137) Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood by Maureen Ryan – Social Justice/Pop Culture. 5/5

138) Wingwalkers by Taylor Brown – Historical Fiction. 3.75/5

139) Breathe and Count Back from Ten by Natalia Sylvester – YA Contemporary/Disability. 4.5/5
 
17/35 Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo

The amazing true story of William and Ellen Craft who escaped slavery in Georgia by Ellen disguising herself as a sickly, white male slave owner traveling north with her slave, actually her husband. The story itself is pretty remarkable, chronicling their journey, their close calls at almost being detected, and then their less than peaceful stay in Boston. The only downside I found were the plethora of names throughout the book. While some well known figures in history make an appearance, like Frederick Douglas and Daniel Webster, it was hard to keep track of everyone. But overall a very interesting book.
 

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