April was an odd reading month for me and I read 0 of the 6 books I put in my April TBR post, so for those reasons, I'm only putting buddy reads on my May TBR.
When I posted my review of Sepety's latest book I got lots of people raving about this title and other people who wanted to read it, so I decided a buddy read was in order since I hadn't read it yet. If you want to join in, please DM me on my Instagram!
The Fountains of Silence
by Ruta Sepetys
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Salt to the Sea and Between Shades of Gray comes a gripping, extraordinary portrait of love, silence, and secrets under a Spanish dictatorship.
Madrid, 1957. Under the fascist dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, Spain is hiding a dark secret. Meanwhile, tourists and foreign businessmen flood into Spain under the welcoming promise of sunshine and wine. Among them is eighteen-year-old Daniel Matheson, the son of an oil tycoon, who arrives in Madrid with his parents hoping to connect with the country of his mother's birth through the lens of his camera. Photography--and fate--introduce him to Ana, whose family's interweaving obstacles reveal the lingering grasp of the Spanish Civil War--as well as chilling definitions of fortune and fear. Daniel's photographs leave him with uncomfortable questions amidst shadows of danger. He is backed into a corner of difficult decisions to protect those he loves. Lives and hearts collide, revealing an incredibly dark side to the sunny Spanish city.
Master storyteller Ruta Sepetys once again shines light into one of history's darkest corners in this epic, heart-wrenching novel about identity, unforgettable love, repercussions of war, and the hidden violence of silence--inspired by the true postwar struggles of Spain.
In case you have missed it, I run the #NancyDrewBookCrew over on my Instagram where we are reading through the Nancy Drew books in order. If you want to join in, I would love to chat with you about that! We would love to have you discuss with us!
Also, check out my blog posts on Nancy Drew books
Nancy Drew 28: The Clue of the Black Keys
by Carolyn Keene
Terry Scott, a young archaeology professor, seeks Nancy's help in unearthing a secret of antiquity which can only be unlocked by three black keys. While on an archaeological expedition in Mexico, Terry and Dr. Joshua Pitt came across a clue to buried treasure. The clue was a cipher carved on a stone tablet. Before the professor had time to translate the cipher, the tablet disappeared - along with Dr. Pitt! Terry tells Nancy of his suspicions of the Tinos, a Mexican couple posing as scientists who vanished the same night as Dr. Pitt. Nancy and her friends follow a tangled trail of clues that lead to the Florida Keys and finally to Mexico in this suspense-filled story that will thrill readers.
Okay, so I don't have an official buddy read of this one scheduled (but slide into my DMs if you want to buddy read it officially), but ALL of Bookstagram is talking about this one, so I feel like it's essentially a bookstagram wide buddy read. And my template for my TBR posts has to have six ;).
Book Lovers
by Emily Henry
Thanks to Libro.fm, PRH Audio, & Berkley
One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming...
Nora Stephens' life is books--she's read them all--and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.
Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters' trip away--with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she's convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they've met many times and it's never been cute.
If Nora knows she's not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he's nobody's hero, but as they are thrown together again and again--in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow--what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they've written about themselves.
For my last IRL book club pick we chose The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner. To continue in the same theme, we chose this title because it has some overlap with Japanese internment camps during WWII. I'm excited to dive in.
Learning to See
by Elise Hooper
If you liked Sold on a Monday and Beautiful Exiles, you'll love this novel about strong-willed trailblazing photographer, Dorothea Lange, whose fame grew during World War II and the Great Depression.
In 1918, a fearless twenty-two-year old arrives in bohemian San Francisco from the Northeast, determined to make her own way as an independent woman. Renaming herself Dorothea Lange she is soon the celebrated owner of the city's most prestigious and stylish portrait studio and wife of the talented but volatile painter, Maynard Dixon.
By the early 1930s, as America's economy collapses, her marriage founders and Dorothea must find ways to support her two young sons single-handedly. Determined to expose the horrific conditions of the nation's poor, she takes to the road with her camera, creating images that inspire, reform, and define the era. And when the United States enters World War II, Dorothea chooses to confront another injustice--the incarceration of thousands of innocent Japanese Americans.
At a time when women were supposed to keep the home fires burning, Dorothea Lange, creator of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century, dares to be different. But her choices came at a steep price...
This was @FortWords pick for our second round of postal book club with @What_Amy_Reads and @Kacy_Elise
Caroline: Little House, Revisited
by: Sarah Miller
In this novel authorized by the Little House Heritage Trust, Sarah Miller vividly recreates the beauty, hardship, and joys of the frontier in a dazzling work of historical fiction, a captivating story that illuminates one courageous, resilient, and loving pioneer woman as never before--Caroline Ingalls, Ma in Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved Little House books.
In the frigid days of February, 1870, Caroline Ingalls and her family leave the familiar comforts of the Big Woods of Wisconsin and the warm bosom of her family, for a new life in Kansas Indian Territory. Packing what they can carry in their wagon, Caroline, her husband Charles, and their little girls, Mary and Laura, head west to settle in a beautiful, unpredictable land full of promise and peril.
The pioneer life is a hard one, especially for a pregnant woman with no friends or kin to turn to for comfort or help. The burden of work must be shouldered alone, sickness tended without the aid of doctors, and babies birthed without the accustomed hands of mothers or sisters. But Caroline's new world is also full of tender joys. In adapting to this strange new place and transforming a rough log house built by Charles' hands into a home, Caroline must draw on untapped wells of strength she does not know she possesses.
For more than eighty years, generations of readers have been enchanted by the adventures of the American frontier's most famous child, Laura Ingalls Wilder, in the Little House books. Now, that familiar story is retold in this captivating tale of family, fidelity, hardship, love, and survival that vividly reimagines our past.
In 2022, I've been buddy reading the rest of the published, original series, Outlander books with @FortWords. We have already started this one, but I expect to finish it this month:)!
If you haven't read Outlander before and are interested in diving in please do not do so without making yourself aware of the content and trigger warnings. I would be happy to talk to you if you are interested. This is not a book series to go blindly into and is certainly not for everyone.
Go Tell the Bees I'm Gone
by Diana Galbaldon
War leaves nobody alone. Neither the past, the present, nor the future offers true safety, and the only refuge is what you can protect: your family, your friends, your home.
Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them twenty years of loss and heartbreak to find each other again. Now it's 1779, and Claire and Jamie are finally reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children, and are rebuilding their home on Fraser's Ridge--a fortress that may shelter them against the winds of war as well as weather.
But tensions in the Colonies are great: Battles rage from New York to Georgia and, even in the mountains of the backcountry, feelings run hot enough to boil Hell's teakettle. Jamie knows that loyalties among his tenants are split and it won't be long before the war is on his doorstep.
Brianna and Roger have their own worry: that the dangers that provoked their escape from the twentieth century might catch up to them. Sometimes they question whether risking the perils of the 1700s--among them disease, starvation, and an impending war--was indeed the safer choice for their family.
Not so far away, young William Ransom is coming to terms with the mysteries of his identity, his future, and the family he's never known. His erstwhile father, Lord John Grey, has reconciliations to make and dangers to meet on his son's behalf and on his own, and far to the north, Young Ian Murray fights his own battle between past and future, and the two women he's loved.
Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War creeps ever closer to Fraser's Ridge. Jamie sharpens his sword, while Claire whets her surgeon's blade: It is a time for steel.
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