Reading Thread/Goals for 2025

[Wood Nymph]

34 - The Last Juror - by John Grisham - 3.5/5

This is not a typical lawyer story from John Grisham. The main character owns a newspaper in a small, rural town in Mississippi. The time period is the 70's. It contains a murder and a trial, but it is more about the people and the changes that happened in the 70's.

I liked the characters, the plot, and the story. The pace of it could have been a little better, though.

 

[OKW8297]

28. The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

 

[willowsnn3]

#29 Bear Tooth by Callan Wink
Two brothers in dire straits, living on the edge of Yellowstone, agree to a desperate act of survival.
In an aging timber house hand-built into the Absaroka-Beartooth mountains, two brothers are struggling to keep up with their debts. They live off the grid on the fringe of Yellowstone, surviving after the death of their father. Thad, the elder, is more capable of engaging with things like the truck registration and the medical bills from their father’s fatal illness and the tax lien on the cabin their grandfather built, while Hazen is... different, more instinctual, deeply attuned to the natural world. Desperate for money, they are approached by a shadowy out-of-towner with a proposition and agree to attempt a heist of natural resources from Yellowstone, a federal crime.

Interesting at times but struggled to finish it only to find one of those endings that.....just end.

 

[Kirby]

#44 - Diamonds & Cole; A Cole Sage Mystery #1 by Micheal Maxwell
Genre - Mystery
This is my Book Club's pick for this month. I thoroughly enjoyed it and plan on reading the rest of the series. It's different than any other mystery I've read which says a lot and it's clean. I give it a 5/5.

 

[MGMmjl]

26/32 - The Intruder by Freida McFadden

Description:
"Casey's cabin in the wilderness is not built for a hurricane. Her roof shakes, the lights flicker, and the tree outside her front door sways ominously in the wind. But she's a lot more worried about the girl she discovers lurking outside her kitchen window.

She’s young. She’s alone. And she’s covered in blood.

The girl won't explain where she came from or loosen her grip on the knife in her right hand. And when Casey makes a disturbing discovery in the middle of the night, things take a turn for the worse.

The girl has a dark secret. One she’ll kill to keep. And if Casey gets too close to the truth, she may not live to see the morning."

This is the latest release from Freida McFadden. I thought it was pretty good!

 

[Kirby]

#45 - All in Good Time; Book 3 in The Long Road Home Trilogy by Linda Byler
Genre - Inspirational
I enjoyed this book as much as the previous two in the series. I was a little disappointed in the ending but realistically it was the obvious way to go.

 

[cayennews]

#37 Never Let You Go by Chevy Stevens. This book was too long winded. The end was underwhelming. Jumped around a lot.

 

[Wood Nymph]

r35 - O Pioneer - by Willa Cather - published in 1913

This was a very interesting look at early settlers to Nebraska. The story includes settlers from Sweden, Norway, Bohemia, Germany and France. The main characters were Swedish. It mentioned that many of the first settlers knew nothing about farming. They were tradesmen back in their home country. The lack of farming skills contributed to some of the failures of the early settlers.

"The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman, writes Willa Cather in O Pioneers! The country is America; the woman is Alexandra Bergson, a fiercely independent young Swedish immigrant girl who inherits her father's farm in Nebraska. A model of emotional strength, courage, and resolve, Alexandra fights long and hard to transform her father's patch of raw, wind-blasted prairie into a highly profitable business. A gripping saga of love, murder, greed, failure, and triumph, O Pioneers! vividly portrays the hardships of prairie life. Above all, it champions the belief that hard work is the surest road to personal fulfillment."-- Alibris.com.

 

[OKW8297]

29. The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods. A truly delightful book.

 

[Kirby]

#46 - A Patchwork Family; Book 1 in the Angels of Mercy by Charlotte Hubbard
Genre - Inspirational
A good wife who can find?She is far more precious than jewels... Meet Mercy Malloy. Whether she's cooking up the best grub to be had all along the Holladay stagecoach line, working her husband's horse farm or helping her neighbors, God's love fills her life.She opens her hand to the poor,And reaches out her hands to the needy... So when two orphaned children appear on her doorstep, she hesitates only a moment before opening her heart and her home to them. Perhaps this is the Lord's way of sending her and Judd the babies they've prayed for.Her children rise up and call her blessed;Her husband also, and he praises her... Out on the Kansas plains the years bring hardship and heartache - Indian attacks, a runaway daughter, an abandoned baby in a basket - but also precious new life and the unlooked for joy of a surprise love. Through it all, Mercy's faith holds her family together, creating a patchwork of strength and beauty.

I enjoyed reading it, adding book 2 to my reading list.