I didn’t realized how much I read in the last month. Whew! I’ve been keeping busy with a lot of Book Bub deals and this month I dove back into audiobooks. I forgot how much I enjoyed them!
Before you check out these reviews, check out what I read during the first few weeks of quarantine.
Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Lately I’ve been tiring of the whole dual timeline thing. I feel like this structure is used a lot—or at least a lot in the books I’m interested in, but Black Rabbit Hall was the perfect use of this device.
It flashes back and forth between the present day where Lorna is looking to host her wedding at Cornwall’s Black Rabbit Hall and the 1960s, when Amber and her family spend their summers in bliss at their vacation home—until her father’s new wife moves in.
This one definitely kept me guessing and interested throughout. This would make a great lazy vacation read, but reading on the patio is as close as I’m getting these days.
Her Mother’s Lies by Rona Halsall • ⭐️
Reading this, I felt like it was a draft of something that could shape up to be a decent airport read. But in its current state, it was almost irritating to work through.
I felt like so much of the story could have been tightened up. Much of it dragged, the characters had the same conversations over and over, plot points were constantly reiterated. It was tiresome.
In the end, the twists just weren’t even that satisfying because they took so long to come and weren’t big enough to be thrilling.
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Over the years, I’ve started this book several times. I’ve made it about 100 pages in with each go, but just found it a bit slow. I kept returning to it, though, because I’m a fan of Sarah Waters.
This time, instead of reading, I went with the audiobook version and I absolutely devoured it. I think this was key since the book is a bit slow and pretty lengthy (nearly 500 pages).
No, the book wasn’t as spooky as I hoped, but it was atmospheric and the narration was really terrific. Like all of Sarah Waters’s books, I felt very much taken by the world she created and the characters—likable or not.
The Widow’s House by Carol Goodman • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
On the back of The Little Stranger, I downloaded another audiobook. I realized how much I preferred listening to them over podcasts on a walk or the TV while doing a puzzle. Like the last one, I listened to this one pretty much nonstop.
This book was made for me: ghost stories, mysterious happenings, an old estate, a small town with lots of lore. I was sucked in right away as the protagonist, Claire, returned to her hometown with her husband and became caretakers at an estate owned by their former professor. I dream of doing this sort of thing (with different ends, of course), so it was a great setting to snuggle into.
After listening, I looked up the narrator, Cassandra Campbell. Turns out she also performed two other audiobooks I loved (Bittersweet and Dark Places). I think her style combined with this story was the perfect storm for me. I can’t recommend it enough.
Blackberry & Wild Rose by Sonia Velton • ⭐️
I’ll be honest—I didn’t finish this book. I was tempted to just let this audiobook run its course while I did chores, but life’s too short for aggravating books.
I was intrigued by this book because it had a pretty title and a gorgeous cover. I am a sucker for this sort of thing. Add in that it was historical fiction about silk weavers and I was sold.
But, damn, the characters were just so unlikeable and not in the fun way (like Mad Men‘s Pete Campbell). There were so many nitpicky things about the two protagonists that I just could not stand, but made me stop listening to this one for good was the anti-labor plotline. Maybe it would have been resolved, but the tradesmen in the book were constantly portrayed as being dim-witted, angry rabble-rousers. I couldn’t work under that assumption on top of two really annoying protagonists.
I quit listening three-quarters of the way through.
Like the Willow Tree: The Diary of Lydia Amelia Pierce, Portland, Maine, 1918 by Lois Lowry • 👌
Yes, this is a Dear America book. Remember those? They were some of my absolute favorites as a kid (those and the Royal Diaries spinoff series).
A friend of mine and I have been talking about reading one of these for ages and we both dove in with this extremely topical one from Lois Lowry (the author of The Giver).
I haven’t read a Dear America book since 2002, so I have a hard time comparing it to what I recall were my favorites (the Titanic one for sure and also one about the Great Depression at Christmas). But Like the Willow Tree was an alright read. I learned a lot about the Quakers and a bit more about the 1918 flu epidemic. Maybe that part hit too close to home?
At any rate, a book like this was a good treat. Kind of like eating your favorite childhood cereal. Maybe not as good as you remember but still satisfying.
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That’s a lot of books for me, but I’ve definitely got audiobooks to thank for that. I just started to use Chirp for audiobook deals, so if you’re interested you can use this link for 20% off (and I get 20% off, too!).
