I tend to read multiple books at once due to my moods, what I’m studying or what I’m reading for pleasure. I know many say they can’t read like that but I’ve been able to do so for a long time now. Look at it this way, people usually watch multiple tv shows on a weekly basis and are able to keep up with the plots and characters without any problems. Taking notes or talking with a friend about what you’re reading is a good idea. I also like to go back a few pages sometimes to immerse myself back into the story. That said, if I’m really into a story and I don’t want to put it down or can’t wait to get back to it, I will focus on that story before moving on to the next one. I have finished a few books since the last time I blogged about books and I’m hoping to move on to a few books I’ve listed below.
I’ve had, “One Good Thing” by Georgia Hunter in my currently reading pile for quite a while now and haven’t been able to finish it. For some reason, I’m just not able to get into the story. Perhaps it is because I’ve read so many World War II stories and I’m experiencing burnout. That has happened to me before with this theme. I want to give the story a fair critique so I will be putting it aside temporary.
Side note: There are many books I’m using for study that I haven’t blogged about as of yet or I study and reference them on an ongoing basis.
Stephanie
The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman (I have an advance reader’s copy)
Pub Date Jul 29 2025
In rural 1930s Virginia, a young immigrant mother fights for her dignity and those she loves against America’s rising eugenics movement – when widespread support for policies of prejudice drove imprisonment and forced sterilizations based on class, race, disability, education, and country of origin – in this tragic and uplifting novel of social injustice, survival, and hope for readers of Susan Meissner, Kristin Hannah, and Christina Baker Kline.
When Lena Conti—a young, unwed mother—sees immigrant families being forcibly separated on Ellis Island, she vows not to let the officers take her two-year old daughter. But the inspection process is more rigorous than she imagined, and she is separated from her mother and teenage brother, who are labeled burdens to society, denied entry, and deported back to Germany. Now, alone but determined to give her daughter a better life after years of living in poverty and near starvation, she finds herself facing a future unlike anything she had envisioned.
Silas Wolfe, a widowed family relative, reluctantly brings Lena and her daughter to his weathered cabin in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains to care for his home and children. Though the hills around Wolfe Hollow remind Lena of her homeland, she struggles to adjust. Worse, she is stunned to learn the children in her care have been taught to hide when the sheriff comes around. As Lena meets their neighbors, she realizes the community is vibrant and tight knit, but also senses growing unease. The State of Virginia is scheming to paint them as ignorant, immoral, and backwards so they can evict them from their land, seize children from parents, and deal with those possessing “inferior genes.”
After a social worker from the Eugenics Office accuses Lena of promiscuity and feeblemindedness, her own worst fears come true. Sent to the Virginia State Colony for the Feebleminded and Epileptics, Lena face impossible choices in hopes of reuniting with her daughter—and protecting the people, and the land, she has grown to love.
Children of the Book: A Memoir of Reading Together by Ilana Kurshan (I have an advance reader’s copy)
Pub Date Aug 26 2025
In Children of the Book, Ilana Kurshan explores the closeness forged when family life unfolds against a backdrop of reading together. Kurshan, a mother of five living in Jerusalem, at first struggles to balance her passion for literature with her responsibilities as a parent. Gradually she learns how to relate to reading not as a solitary pursuit and an escape from the messiness of life, but rather as a way of teaching independence and forging connection. Introducing her children to sacred and secular literature—including the beloved classics of her childhood—helps her become both a better mother and a better reader.
Chief among the books Kurshan reads with her children is the Five Books of Moses, known as the Torah, which Jews the world over read in synchrony as part of the liturgical cycle. In the five parts of this memoir, Kurshan explores the surprising resonances between the biblical text and her experiences as a mother and a reader – from the first picture books that create the world through language for little babies, to the moment our children begin reading on their own leaving us behind, atop the mountain, as they enter new lands without us. A testament to the enduring power of shared texts, Children of the Book celebrates the deep pleasures of books.
The Dark Library by Mary Anna Evans (I have an advance reader’s copy)
Pub Date Jun 24 2025
Estella Ecker has returned to Rockfall House, the last place on earth she wants to be. Years after she ran away from her overbearing father, she has been forced back home to walk in his footsteps, teaching at the college he dominated and living in the fabulous home where he entertained artists and scholars for decades—and perhaps she owns it now, because her mercurial mother has disappeared. At the center of everything—the whispers, the rumors, the secrets—is her father’s library of rare books, which she had been forbidden to touch while he was alive to stop her.
Everyone in town is watching Estella, with her dead father’s name on their lips, and no one seems to care about her missing mother. Who were her parents, really, and is the answer hidden somewhere in the depths of Rockfall House? And who will Estella be, if she gathers enough courage to find that answer? What she will discover is that no one can escape the secrets hidden in this dark library.
Suspenseful and unsettling but ultimately triumphant, The Dark Library by acclaimed author Mary Anna Evans is a compelling tale of mystery, family secrets, and the quest for truth.
Layered Pages 