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In 1910, eleven year old Iris Villarca lives with her father at Rawblood, a lonely house on Dartmoor. Iris and her father are the last of their name. The Villarcas always die young, bloodily. Iris knows it’s because of a congenital disease which means she must be strictly isolated. Papa told her so. Forbidden to speak to other children or the servants, denied her one friend, Iris grows up in solitude. But she reads books. And one sunlit autumn day, beside her mother’s grave, she forces the truth from her father. The disease is biologically impossible. A lie, to cover a darker secret.
The Villarcas are haunted, through the generations, by her. She is white, skeletal, covered with scars. Her origins are a mystery but her purpose is clear. When a Villarca marries, when they love, when they have a child – she comes and death follows.
Iris makes her father a promise: to remain alone all her life. But when she’s fifteen, she breaks it. The consequences of her choice are immediate and horrific.
Iris’s story is interwoven with the past, the voices of the dead – Villarcas, taken by her. Iris’s grandmother sets sail from Dover to Italy with a hired companion, to spend her final years in the sun before consumption takes her. Instead she meets betrayal, and a fate worse than death. Iris’s father, his medical career in ruins, conducts unconscionable experiments, to discover how she travels in the Villarca blood. Iris’s mother, pregnant, walks the halls of Rawblood whispering to her, coaxing her to come. As the narratives converge, Iris seeks her out in a confrontation which shatters her past and her reality, revealing the chasm in Iris’s own, fractured identity. Who is she? What does she desire? The answer is more terrible and stranger than Iris could have imagined.
I’ve heard good things about Catriona Ward but have never read her books. This was a buddy read so I thought it might be a good opportunity to try one.
The Narrator(s)
Liz Pearce, Steven Crossley, John Keating, Elizabeth Sastre, Jenny Sterlin. This was painful to listen to on audio. The narrators were fine, but the sound engineering was so bad and it really detracted from my listening experience. The volumes between chapters were inconsistent, and there was one chapter where the volume varied so much I had to keep turning it higher and lower as I was listening to it! The soft parts were so difficult to hear and the loud parts were sudden and hurt my ears. I didn’t enjoy listening to this on audiobook at all!
My Thoughts
I feel like I missed a lot of details and the nuances of the story because of the audiobook production, and it made me doubt my listening comprehension of the book. This book is told in multiple POVs, across multiple timelines, and it jumps about a bit. There were many times when the story jumps to something that wasn’t mentioned in previous chapters and I had to wonder if I missed something or if it was a stylistic choice. I enjoy time jumps and missing pieces of the puzzle as stylistic choices, but I couldn’t be sure that was what was happening here while listening to it. I had to repeat entire chapters of the book because I was so confused.
Having said that, I love the vibes of the book and the writing style. It feels very gothic and is reminiscent of Frankenstein, which is one of my favorite books. The vibes and writing style is enough to make me want more, but I think next time I’ll try a print version of Catriona Ward’s books.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden sex worker, can offer the chance of redemption.
I’d been wanting to read more classics, hence the reason I joined The Classics Club, and I’d been wanting to read Dostoevsky, and this happened to be one of the buddy reads in my online bookclub, so it all worked out and made me read a book I would’ve otherwise kept putting off.
The Quotes
“To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”
“Existence alone had never been enough for him; he had always wanted more. Perhaps it was only from the force of his desires that he had regarded himself as a man to whom more was permitted than to others.”
“The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.”
“What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?”
The Narrator(s)
Will Poulter. I was very pleasantly surprised by his narration. I loved that his narration was so clear and easily understandable, and I was surprised with his voices for the characters. It was really easy to listen to because of his narration. And I say this after sampling a couple of other narrators for this book.
My Thoughts
I had been intimidated by this book for ages and thought it would be difficult to get through, but it’s surprisingly easy – maybe because I listened on audiobook with Will Poulter narrating, but whatever helps is good, right? I did get confused with the names and nicknames, as is normal for Russian literature and fantasy novels with made-up names and places, but I was mostly able to follow along with the story and characters. I did have to refer occasionally to the physical book to clear some of the confusion though.
As for the story itself, I have to say that I don’t really connect to the characters and their motivations. A lot of it didn’t make sense to me; why they do the things they did, why they talked so much and did so little, a lot of things happened in their head and in conversations. There were a lot of thinking, and wondering, and existential crises.
However, there were discussions in the buddy read for this book that helped me understand some things better in regards to how the story relates to the beliefs and values of the time and place, and while I’m still not sure that I like the book, I can absolutely see why it’s considered a masterpiece. I also intend to reread this book again because I’m sure that I’ll get more out of it every time I read it, so maybe I’ll have more to say next time.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars. 4 stars because I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook, participating in the discussions for the book, and because I think it’s really well-written despite my disconnect to the characters.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Libby Day was just seven years old when her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother behind bars.
Since then, she has been drifting. But when she is contacted by a group who are convinced of Ben’s innocence, Libby starts to ask questions she never dared to before. Was the voice she heard her brother’s? Ben was a misfit in their small town, but was he capable of murder? Are there secrets to uncover at the family farm or is Libby deluding herself because she wants her brother back?
She begins to realise that everyone in her family had something to hide that day… especially Ben. Now, twenty-four years later, the truth is going to be even harder to find.
It’s a buddy read and I enjoyed Gillian Flynn’s other books!
The Quotes
“I was not a lovable child, and I’d grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs.”
“You think you know the answer, you’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? You think after what happened there’s any peace for you, sweetheart? How about this. Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened.”
“Don’t be discouraged – every relationship you have is a failure, until you find the right one.”
“I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. I can’t do it, but I can applaud it in others.”
The Narrator(s)
Rebecca Lowman, Cassandra Campbell, Mark Deakins, Robertson Dean. They were all great, I loved listening to the audiobook!
My Thoughts
Funny story; apparently I read this book before in 2016 and forgot that I read it. I forgot pretty much everything about it, to the point that the final reveal at the end didn’t even occur to me and surprised me all over again! Which is pretty great, tbh, because I got to experience it all over again for a second time.
This was another buddy read and as always, I loved the experience of reading it with other readers and reading their comments about the book. One of the things I love most about Gillian Flynn is her ability to write flawed and unlikeable characters and yet make you root for them, understand them, put yourself in their shoes.
Libby is very flawed, but I love that she’s also very self-aware about her flaws. She’s not as self-aware about her strengths but that’s a lot of us. She’s relatable that way. Once things started getting into motion, I felt her compulsion to find out more about what happened to her family. I would feel the same way too. I would need answers. It’s such a painful thing to have happened at all, and I get that having answers don’t erase that bad things happened, but it does help to have questions answered.
Completely worth reading/rereading!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
When Lauren and Ryan’s marriage reaches the breaking point, they come up with an unconventional plan. They decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. One year apart, and only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes.
Lauren embarks on a journey of self-discovery, quickly finding that her friends and family have their own ideas about the meaning of marriage. These influences, as well as her own healing process and the challenges of living apart from Ryan, begin to change Lauren’s ideas about monogamy and marriage. She starts to question: When you can have romance without loyalty and commitment without marriage, when love and lust are no longer tied together, what do you value? What are you willing to fight for?
This is a love story about what happens when the love fades. It’s about staying in love, seizing love, forsaking love, and committing to love with everything you’ve got. And above all, After I Do is the story of a couple caught up in an old game—and searching for a new road to happily ever after.
It’s Taylor Jenkins Reid! And it’s Julia Whelan narrating! I don’t need any other reasons.
The Quotes
“Isn’t it nice … once you’ve outgrown the ideas of what life should be and you just enjoy what it is.”
“Here is what I can tell you. All that matters in this life is that you try. All that matters is that you open your heart, give everything you have, and keep trying.”
“I know it will be OK because everything is OK in the end. And if it’s not OK, it’s not the end.”
“I’ve come to realize that resentment is malignant. That it starts small and festers. That it grows wild and unfettered inside of you until it’s so expansive that it has worked its way into the furthest, deepest parts of you and holds on for dear life.”
The Narrator(s)
Julia Whelan. She’s the GOAT!
My Thoughts
TJR is so good at writing about relationships and family. While reading this book, I kept thinking that she really knew how to capture the essence of relationships, the everyday things that make up a life together, and it’s just so relatable. I don’t necessarily agree with some of her take on relationships, but I do feel that she definitely captures them well.
This book isn’t my favorite from TJR, but I did like it and it made me appreciate my own relationship with my husband very much. We’ve got our own ups and downs, but I think the one thing we do right is that we are always interested in each other. We talk all the time and it never gets boring, we play together, we listen to each other and never take the other for granted. Don’t get me wrong, we have disagreements and bad days too, but it’s always us against the problem.
One of the things I love most about reading is that it make me think and reflect on my own life, and I think this one did a great job of it. I’m not the biggest fan of the story and the MCs themselves, but it was fascinating to see how their marriage worked.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Anne’s own true love, Gilbert Blythe, is finally a doctor, and in the sunshine of the old orchard, among their dearest friends, they are about to speak their vows. Soon the happy couple will be bound for a new life together and their own dream house, on the misty purple shores of Four Winds Harbor.
A new life means fresh problems to solve, fresh surprises. Anne and Gilbert will make new friends and meet their neighbors: Captain Jim, the lighthouse attendant, with his sad stories of the sea; Miss Cornelia Bryant, the lady who speaks from the heart—and speaks her mind; and the tragically beautiful Leslie Moore, into whose dark life Anne shines a brilliant light.
I started Anne of Green Gables and loved it and just had to continue with the series!
The Quotes
“The woods call to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one only — a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of the archangels.”
“Even when I’m alone I have real good company — dreams and imaginations and pretendings. I like to be alone now and then, just to think over things and taste them. But I love friendships — and nice, jolly little times with people.”
“But pearls are for tears, the old legend says,” Gilbert had objected. “I’m not afraid of that. And tears can be happy as well as sad. My very happiest moments have been when I had tears in my eyes—when Marilla told me I might stay at Green Gables—when Matthew gave me the first pretty dress I ever had—when I heard that you were going to recover from the fever. So give me pearls for our troth ring, Gilbert, and I’ll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy.”
“Thank goodness, we can choose our friends. We have to take our relatives as they are, and be thankful…”
The Narrator(s)
Beth Kesler. Loving the narration!
My Thoughts
For some reason, the Anne of Green Gables audio collection I bought skips the fourth book right to the fifth. That’s okay though, it doesn’t look like we miss much in terms of Anne and Gilbert’s life together. We see Anne’s House of Dreams here, and we meet Leslie Moore and Captain Jim. I love both these characters so much!
I love seeing Anne and Gilbert making a life together, but I also got so invested in Leslie’s story. I think even with how light and whimsical all the Anne of Green Gables books are, there’s always some important life lesson to be learned. And at the end of the day, life is meant to be lived with joy and happiness. I just saw that the last time I read these books was almost a decade ago! That’s way too long. I need constant reminders of Anne and her joy!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
New adventures lie ahead as Anne Shirley packs her bags, waves good-bye to childhood, and heads for Redmond College. With her old friend Prissy Grant waiting in the bustling city of Kingsport and her frivolous new friend Philippa Gordon at her side, Anne tucks her memories of rural Avonlea away and discovers life on her own terms, filled with surprises . . . including a marriage proposal from the worst fellow imaginable, the sale of her very first story, and a tragedy that teaches her a painful lesson. But tears turn to laughter when Anne and her friends move into an old cottage and an ornery black cat steals her heart. Little does Anne know that handsome Gilbert Blythe wants to win her heart, too. Suddenly Anne must decide whether she’s ready for love.
I started Anne of Green Gables and loved it and just had to continue with the series!
The Quotes
“All life lessons are not learned at college,’ she thought. ‘Life teaches them everywhere.”
“I’ve loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head in school.”
“I do know my own mind,’ protested Anne. ‘The trouble is, my mind changes and then I have to get acquainted with it all over again.”
“When you’ve learned to laugh at the things that should be laughed at, and not to laugh at those that shouldn’t, you’ve got wisdom and understanding.”
The Narrator(s)
Beth Kesler. Loving the narration!
My Thoughts
I’m still loving the series! We meet Phil in this book, and Patty’s Place, and Gog and Magog! I love them all! Somehow Anne living her everyday life is just so much fun to read about. The people she meets, the things she does, all the joy she takes in the world. She’s starting to grow up, but she’s still as dreamy and whimsical as ever, and I love that!
We see a lot more of Anne and Gilbert’s romance here, which I am so here for! The journey can be heartbreaking at times, but as long as we get our Happy Ever After, I can weather the storms with a brave face. There are some other sad parts as well, but I think that’s part of the beauty of these books; we grow up with Anne, and we come across difficult things in life as we grow. That doesn’t mean we give into sadness, but only that we continue to find joy despite the sad things. Onwards to the next books!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Murders and Metaphors (Magical Bookshop #3) by Amanda Flower
January means ice wine season in the Niagara Falls region, but the festivities leave Charming Books owner Violet Waverly cold, still reeling from a past heartbreak. Little do either Waverly women know, the ice wine festival will turn colder still when Violet finds Belinda in the middle of the frozen vineyard – with a grape harvest knife protruding from her chest.
Belinda grew up in Cascade Springs, but she left town years ago after a huge falling-out with her three sisters. One of those sisters, Violet’s high school friend Lacey Dupont, attends the book signing in the hope of making amends with her sister, but Belinda and Lacey end up disrupting the signing with a very public shouting match and Lacey quickly becomes the prime suspect in the sommelier’s murder.
Violet is sure Lacey is innocent, and to keep her friend out of prison, Violet asks for guidance from her magical bookshop. The shop’s ethereal essence points her to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, but what have the four March sisters to do with the four Perkins sisters? If she can’t figure it out, Violet, herself, may turn as cold as ice.
Rachel Dulude. Still all good! I’m really enjoying her narration.
My Thoughts
I’m going to quit while I’m ahead. I really love the idea of this series; the magical elements, the bookshop and all the books, the smarter than average animals, the cozy mystery, the romantic tension… But I’m getting more and more annoyed with the MC, Violet Waverly, because she keeps doing (and saying) stupid things. I like the romantic tension but it feels a little forced this time. And the fact that all these murders are happening in a small town like this; we are running out of victims and suspects, and if it’s not the usual suspects, it’s going to be the new characters, which makes it too obvious.
Oh, I don’t know. I love the idea and all the elements of this series, I just wish they were put together better. Feeling a little sad about it, but I do think it’s smarter to quit while I’m ahead and still enjoying what I got out of the books.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Prose and Cons (Magical Bookshop #2) by Amanda Flower
Magic, books, and cats collide in a village near Niagara Falls in the latest Magical Bookshop Mystery from the author of Crime and Poetry .
In Cascade Springs, New York, Violet Waverly and her grandma, Daisy, are the proprietors of Charming Books, where the power of the written word is positively enchanting…
October in Cascade Springs means tourists are pouring in for the annual Food and Wine Festival, and Daisy hopes to draw those crowds to the store. She asks Violet and the local writing group, the Red Inkers, to give a reading of the works of Edgar Allan Poe in the shop’s back garden to entertain the revelers. Everyone eagerly agrees.
Yet their enthusiasm is soon extinguished when Violet discovers one of the writers dead during the event. After the shop magically tells Violet she’ll need to rely on Poe’s works to solve the murder, she enlists the help of her trusty tuxedo cat, Emerson, and the shop’s crow, Faulkner. But they must act fast before someone else’s heart beats nevermore…
Rachel Dulude. Still all good! I’m really enjoying her narration.
My Thoughts
I love that each book focuses on one “book theme”; the first book featured Emily Dickinson, this one featured Edgar Allan Poe. Their works provide the clues to solving the mysteries that the MC, Violet Waverly, has to figure out. However, I sometimes feel like it’s a bit of a reach and the clues don’t really do anything to help Violet. Or else Violet isn’t very good at solving the cases. She still makes stupid decisions, which I forgave in the first book, but that are starting to annoy me in the second book.
I do love the cat though. Emerson is the best cat and I love him. There are a lot of good things about this book. I love the ensemble characters. I love Chief Rainwater. I love Grandma Daisy. I love Sadie and Lacey, and I love Lacey’s husband for his food and making me hungry through the page. I love that there’s magic and books and smart animals. It’s a fun read.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Crime and Poetry (Magical Bookshop #1) by Amanda Flower
From Amanda Flower—who writes the national bestselling Amish Quilt Shop Mysteries as Isabella Alan—comes the first in the new Magical Bookshop Mystery series.
Rushing home to sit by her ailing grandmother’s bedside, Violet Waverly is shocked to find Grandma Daisy the picture of perfect health. Violet doesn’t need to read between the lines: her grandma wants Violet back home and working in her magical store, Charming Books. It’s where the perfect book tends to fly off the shelf and pick you…
Violet has every intention to hightail it back to Chicago, but then a dead man is discovered clutching a volume of Emily Dickinson’s poems from Grandma Daisy’s shop. The victim is Benedict Raisin, who recently put Grandma Daisy in his will, making her a prime suspect. Now, with the help of a tuxedo cat named Emerson, Violet will have to find a killer to keep Grandma from getting booked for good…
Now that I’m finished with the 2024 52 Book Club Reading Challenge, I thought I’d try to make a dent on the other reading challenges I signed up for. This was a bookish book, and it’s a series, so there’s lots more bookish books to read!
The Narrator(s)
Rachel Dulude. I love her! It was smooth listening all the way! I especially love it when she narrates the cat’s meow; it makes me believe it was a real cat!
My Thoughts
Seriously, this book hits all the right spots for a witchy book lover! There’s a magical bookshop, there are magical books, there’s a resident crow and the most adorable cat! There’s also a birthright legacy passed down from grandmother to granddaughter in regards to taking care of the bookshop, and I love everything about it!
There’s also a murder mystery to solve, of course, and I just love how the story unfolds.
It’s not perfect; there are still characters making bad decisions, some things happen too conveniently, and I have issues with one of the characters – Audrey, the victim’s daughter – being so vilified, due to personal beliefs. However, this is meant to be a light-hearted cozy mystery, and so I’ll take it the way it was meant and not analyze it too deeply. It’s actually really well-written and I really enjoyed this book. I plan to read the next books in the series too!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. Unless…
In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sets out on an insane — and insanely possible — mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.
Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping, the sound of Elvis, and the taste of root beer.
In this haunting world, Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian. And, as the ominous date of 11/22/63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald…
This book is a reread. I read it a while ago and remember loving it but not much else. I watched the film adaptation a couple of years ago and wanted to reread then but didn’t, and then I found it as a buddy read recently, so I thought why not.
The Quotes
“When all else fails, give up and go to the library.”
“I’m one of those people who doesn’t really know what he thinks until he writes it down.”
“If you’ve ever been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, you’ll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be.”
“We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.”
The Narrator(s)
Craig Wasson. Okay, I don’t know if it’s a narrator issue or a sound engineer issue, but the volume inconsistencies were painful, literally, to my ears. The narration and the different character voices were great, in themselves, but there were parts where the characters shouted, or spoke harshly, and they were loud and painful! If I turned down the volume, I couldn’t hear the quiet parts well. If I turned up the volume, I had to brace for pain. It was not fun.
My Thoughts
The audiobook wasn’t fun because of the volume issues, but the story itself was amazing, and I think I love it more the second time around! Partly because it was a buddy read; reading with others and having discussions about the book help me notice details I otherwise wouldn’t have noticed, and make me think about things more.
Also, funny enough, while I’m still unhappy about the volume issues with the audiobook, I feel like listening to it this time around actually helped me notice some things I didn’t before, especially with some of the theme and repetitions in the story. It’s interesting because I usually notice things more on print and miss a lot of details when I’m listening to a book, but I think when things get repeated so many times, and if the narrator emphasizes those parts, I definitely take notice.
This audiobook was a 30-hour chonker but it was such an incredible journey. I got so much more out of it this time, and I’m definitely thinking of rereading it again eventually because I believe there’s still more to get out of it!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
