Can't Wait Wednesday - Beyond the Pale by Clare O'Donohue

Linking up with Wishful Endings today :)

Every week, I skim through the "Coming Soon" list at Barnes and Noble for the following week.  

I love looking at the covers and selecting finalists for my upcoming favorites.
Yes, I'm a book nerd.

If I find a cover that interests me, then I open it up and read the blurb.

There are way too many books to read for me to waste one more second, so a book has to grab me...where I am...in that moment.
Most of the time, I can't even predict what that moment looks like.
It's up to the book really ;)

I force myself to stop at 1 choice.  Once I find it, I stop looking...until next week :)

Without further adieu, here's my Can't Wait choice among the "Coming Soon" selections on Barnes and Noble for the week of May 7, 2018:

Beyond the Pale by Clare O'Donohue

Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD

Publication Date: 05/08/2018

Series: A World of Spies Mystery Series, #1

Pages: 360

Here's the synopsis from Barnes and Noble: 

(I've highlighted in red the parts that yell at me loud and clear that I must read this book!)

“O’Donohue (the Someday Quilts series) supplies plenty of fun spy business, but the believability and chemistry of Hollis and Finn as a couple, as shown in their witty dialogue, is the main appeal.”—Publishers Weekly

"The relationship between Hollis and Finn is the hook in this smart debut. It's rare to find a contemporary mystery that makes the everyday challenge of honest communication between partners so compelling, but that's exactly the core of this entertaining mystery about a husband-wife team of crime solvers."—Booklist

"Armchair travelers will delight in the colorful descriptions of Ireland, while mystery buffs who enjoy charming sleuths will appreciate the quick-witted couple"—Library Journal

For college professors Hollis and Finn Larsson, a simple undercover errand becomes a deadly jaunt across Ireland in this edge-of-your-seat suspense novel from bestselling author Clare O’Donohue

It’s an easy, twenty-minute job. At least, that’s the pitch from Interpol to professors Hollis and Finn Larsson. Going undercover to procure a priceless rare book manuscript means an all-expenses paid trip abroad. A little danger thrown into the mix may even spice up their marriage.

Soon after landing in the Emerald Isle, they realize the job is anything but easy. Their contact is a no-show and they’re left with fifty thousand euros, a death threat, and some serious questions. Ducking and dodging their way across Ireland, Hollis and Finn must hunt down the priceless manuscript and a missing agent while trying to stay one step ahead of a dangerous and unknown enemy.

"O’Donohue knows her Irish literature and countryside, and weaves them beautifully into an action-filled story."—Sara Paretsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski series

"Clare O'Donohue may have invented a new category of crime fiction—the amateur spy novel—and I'm a big fan. At turns funny, real, and nail-biting, Beyond the Pale is a terrific read."— Lori Rader-Day, Anthony and Mary Higgins Clark Award-Winning author of The Black Hour, Little Pretty Things, and The Day I Died

"Excitement definitely comes into Hollis's life. But instead of something that could inject life into her marriage, she may just be facing someone who will end her and her husband's lives once and for all. This is Book 1 in the new World of Spies mystery series, and the author has created the perfect roller-coaster ride."—Suspense Magazine

About the Author

Clare O’Donohue is the author of the Kate Conway Mysteries and the Someday Quilts Mysteries. She was a producer for the HGTV show Simply Quilts, and has worked on shows for the History Channel, truTV, Food Network, A&E, Discovery, and TLC.

www.ClareODonohue.com

I'm excited about the possibilities of starting a brand new series right from the start.  Anybody else heard of this one?

Or read any of the other books by Clare O'Donohue?

Can't Wait Wednesday - Between Earth and Sky by Amanda Skenandore

Linking up with Wishful Endings today :)

Every week, I skim through the "Coming Soon" list at Barnes and Noble for the following week.  

I love looking at the covers and selecting finalists for my upcoming favorites.
Yes, I'm a book nerd.

If I find a cover that interests me, then I open it up and read the blurb.

There are way too many books to read for me to waste one more second, so a book has to grab me...where I am...in that moment.
Most of the time, I can't even predict what that moment looks like.
It's up to the book really ;)

I force myself to stop at 1 choice.  Once I find it, I stop looking...until next week :)

Without further adieu, here's my Can't Wait choice among the "Coming Soon" selections on Barnes and Noble for the week of April 23, 2018:

Between Earth and Sky by Amanda Skenandore

Publisher: Kensington

Publication Date: 4/24/2018

Pages: 336

Here's the synopsis from Barnes and Noble: 

(I've highlighted in red the parts that yell at me loud and clear that I must read this book!)

In Amanda Skenandore’s provocative and profoundly moving debut, set in the tragic intersection between white and Native American culture, a young girl learns about friendship, betrayal, and the sacrifices made in the name of belonging.

On a quiet Philadelphia morning in 1906, a newspaper headline catapults Alma Mitchell back to her past. A federal agent is dead, and the murder suspect is Alma’s childhood friend, Harry Muskrat. Harry—or Asku, as Alma knew him—was the most promising student at the “savage-taming” boarding school run by her father, where Alma was the only white pupil. Created in the wake of the Indian Wars, the Stover School was intended to assimilate the children of neighboring reservations. Instead, it robbed them of everything they’d known—language, customs, even their names—and left a heartbreaking legacy in its wake. 

The bright, courageous boy Alma knew could never have murdered anyone. But she barely recognizes the man Asku has become, cold and embittered at being an outcast in the white world and a ghost in his own. Her lawyer husband, Stewart, reluctantly agrees to help defend Asku for Alma’s sake. To do so, Alma must revisit the painful secrets she has kept hidden from everyone—especially Stewart.

Told in compelling narratives that alternate between Alma’s childhood and her present life, Between Earth and Sky is a haunting and complex story of love and loss, as a quest for justice becomes a journey toward understanding and, ultimately, atonement.

About the Author

Amanda Skenandore is a historical fiction writer and registered nurse. In writing Between Earth and Sky, she has drawn on the experiences of a close relative, a member of the Ojibwe Tribe, who survived an Indian mission school in the 1950s. Between Earth and Sky is Amanda’s first novel. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. Readers can visit her website at www.amandaskenandore.com.

I was a little nervous that Between Earth and Sky would be depressing, but the phrase "ultimate atonement" leads me to believe I won't be left bereft at the end of this complicated story.  Anybody else heard of this one?

Can't Wait Wednesday - The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg

Linking up with Wishful Endings today :)

Every week, I skim through the "Coming Soon" list at Barnes and Noble for the following week.  

I love looking at the covers and selecting finalists for my upcoming favorites.
Yes, I'm a book nerd.

If I find a cover that interests me, then I open it up and read the blurb.

There are way too many books to read for me to waste one more second, so a book has to grab me...where I am...in that moment.
Most of the time, I can't even predict what that moment looks like.
It's up to the book really ;)

I force myself to stop at 1 choice.  Once I find it, I stop looking...until next week :)

Without further adieu, here's my Can't Wait choice among the "Coming Soon" selections on Barnes and Noble for the week of November 20, 2017:

The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg

Here's the synopsis from Barnes and Noble: 

(I've highlighted in red the parts that yell at me loud and clear that I must read this book!)

“I dare you to read this novel and not fall in love with Arthur Truluv. His story will make you laugh and cry, and will show you a love that never ends, and what it means to be truly human.”—Fannie Flagg

An emotionally powerful novel about three people who each lose the one they love most, only to find second chances where they least expect them

“Fans of Meg Wolitzer, Emma Straub, or [Elizabeth] Berg’s previous novels will appreciate the richly complex characters and clear prose. Redemptive without being maudlin, this story of two misfits lucky to have found one another will tug at readers’ heartstrings.”—Booklist

For the past six months, Arthur Moses’s days have looked the same: He tends to his rose garden and to Gordon, his cat, then rides the bus to the cemetery to visit his beloved late wife for lunch. The last thing Arthur would imagine is for one unlikely encounter to utterly transform his life. 

Eighteen-year-old Maddy Harris is an introspective girl who visits the cemetery to escape the other kids at school. One afternoon she joins Arthur—a gesture that begins a surprising friendship between two lonely souls. Moved by Arthur’s kindness and devotion, Maddy gives him the nickname “Truluv.” As Arthur’s neighbor Lucille moves into their orbit, the unlikely trio band together and, through heartache and hardships, help one another rediscover their own potential to start anew.

Wonderfully written and full of profound observations about life, The Story of Arthur Truluv is a beautiful and moving novel of compassion in the face of loss, of the small acts that turn friends into family, and of the possibilities to achieve happiness at any age.

Advance praise for The Story of Arthur Truluv

“I don't know if I’ve ever read a more affecting book about the natural affinity between the young and the elderly than Elizabeth Berg’s The Story of Arthur Truluv. It makes the rest of us—strivers and preeners and malcontents—seem almost irrelevant.”—Richard Russo, author of Everybody’s Fool

“Elizabeth Berg reminds us of both the richness of any human life and the heart’s needed resilience.”—Jane Hirshfield, author of The Beauty: Poems

I think I need stories like this one right now...stories that remind me of the human spirit...what do you think?

Can't Wait Wednesday - Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

Linking up with Wishful Endings today :)

Every week, I skim through the "Coming Soon" list at Barnes and Noble for the following week.  

I love looking at the covers and selecting finalists for my upcoming favorites.
Yes, I'm a book nerd.

If I find a cover that interests me, then I open it up and read the blurb.

There are way too many books to read for me to waste one more second, so a book has to grab me...where I am...in that moment.
Most of the time, I can't even predict what that moment looks like.
It's up to the book really ;)

I force myself to stop at 1 choice.  Once I find it, I stop looking...until next week :)

Without further adieu, here's my Can't Wait choice among the "Coming Soon" selections on Barnes and Noble for the week of November 13, 2017:

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

Here's the synopsis from Barnes and Noble: 

(I've highlighted in red the parts that yell at me loud and clear that I must read this book!)

Louise Erdrich, the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of LaRose and The Round House, paints a startling portrait of a young woman fighting for her life and her unborn child against oppressive forces that manifest in the wake of a cataclysmic event.

The world as we know it is ending. Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backwards, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans. Thirty-two-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, adopted daughter of a pair of big-hearted, open-minded Minneapolis liberals, is as disturbed and uncertain as the rest of America around her. But for Cedar, this change is profound and deeply personal. She is four months pregnant.

Though she wants to tell the adoptive parents who raised her from infancy, Cedar first feels compelled to find her birth mother, Mary Potts, an Ojibwe living on the reservation, to understand both her and her baby’s origins. As Cedar goes back to her own biological beginnings, society around her begins to disintegrate, fueled by a swelling panic about the end of humanity.

There are rumors of martial law, of Congress confining pregnant women. Of a registry, and rewards for those who turn these wanted women in. Flickering through the chaos are signs of increasing repression: a shaken Cedar witnesses a family wrenched apart when police violently drag a mother from her husband and child in a parking lot. The streets of her neighborhood have been renamed with Bible verses. A stranger answers the phone when she calls her adoptive parents, who have vanished without a trace. It will take all Cedar has to avoid the prying eyes of potential informants and keep her baby safe.

A chilling dystopian novel both provocative and prescient, Future Home of the Living God is a startlingly original work from one of our most acclaimed writers: a moving meditation on female agency, self-determination, biology, and natural rights that speaks to the troubling changes of our time.

My first Louise Erdrich read was The Round House...sister can work a novel, y'all! 

I can't wait to see how she spins this!

What do you think?

Can't Wait Wednesday - l'appart by David Lebovitz

Linking up with Wishful Endings today :)

Every week, I skim through the "Coming Soon" list at Barnes and Noble for the following week.  

I love looking at the covers and selecting finalists for my upcoming favorites.
Yes, I'm a book nerd.

If I find a cover that interests me, then I open it up and read the blurb...there are way too many books to read for me to waste one more second, so a book has to grab me...where I am in that moment.
And most of the time, I can't even predict what that moment looks like.
It's up to the book really ;)

I force myself to stop at 1 choice.
1
That's it.

Without further adieu, here's my Can't Wait choice among the "Coming Soon" selections on Barnes and Noble for the week of Nov. 6, 2017:


l'appart by David Lebovitz

Here's the synopsis from Barnes and Noble: 

(I've highlighted in red the parts that yell at me loud and clear that I must read this book!)

L'Appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home 

by David Lebovitz

Bestselling author and world-renowned chef David Lebovitz continues to mine the rich subject of his evolving ex-Pat life in Paris, using his perplexing experiences in apartment renovation as a launching point for stories about French culture, food, and what it means to revamp one's life. Includes dozens of new recipes. 

When David Lebovitz began the project of updating his apartment in his adopted home city, he never imagined he would encounter so much inexplicable red tape while contending with the famously inconsistent European work ethic and hours. Lebovitz maintains his distinctive sense of humor with the help of his partner Romain, peppering this renovation story with recipes from his Paris kitchen. In the midst of it all, he reveals the adventure that accompanies carving out a place for yourself in a foreign country—under baffling conditions—while never losing sight of the magic that inspired him to move to the City of Light many years ago, and to truly make his home there.

I'm a sucker for a book about "HOME." 

What do you think?

Can't Wait Wednesday - Mr. Dickens and His Carol

Linking up with Wishful Endings today :)

Every week, I skim through the "Coming Soon" list at Barnes and Noble for the following week.  

I love looking at the covers and selecting finalists for my upcoming favorites.
Yes, I'm a book nerd.

If I find a cover that interests me, then I open it up and read the blurb...there are way too many books to read for me to waste one more second, so a book has to grab me...where I am in that moment.
And most of the time, I can't even predict what that moment looks like.
It's up to the book really ;)

I force myself to stop at 1 choice.
1
That's it.

Without further adieu, here's my Can't Wait choice among the "Coming Soon" selections on Barnes and Noble for the week of October 30, 2017:


Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva

Here's the synopsis from Barnes and Noble: 

(I've highlighted in red the parts that yell at me loud and clear that I must read this book!)

“A charming, comic, and ultimately poignant story about the creation of the most famous Christmas tale ever written. It’s as foggy and haunted and redemptive as the original; it’s all heart, and I read it in a couple of ebullient, Christmassy gulps.” —Anthony Doerr, #1 New York Times bestselling author of All The Light We Cannot See

Laced with humor, rich historical detail from Charles Dickens’ life, and clever winks to his work, Samantha Silva's Mr. Dickens and His Carol is an irresistible new take on a cherished classic.

Charles Dickens is not feeling the Christmas spirit. His newest book is an utter flop, the critics have turned against him, relatives near and far hound him for money. While his wife plans a lavish holiday party for their ever-expanding family and circle of friends, Dickens has visions of the poor house. But when his publishers try to blackmail him into writing a Christmas book to save them all from financial ruin, he refuses. And a serious bout of writer’s block sets in.

Frazzled and filled with self-doubt, Dickens seeks solace in his great palace of thinking, the city of London itself. On one of his long night walks, in a once-beloved square, he meets the mysterious Eleanor Lovejoy, who might be just the muse he needs. As Dickens’ deadlines close in, Eleanor propels him on a Scrooge-like journey that tests everything he believes about generosity, friendship, ambition, and love. The story he writes will change Christmas forever."




Y'all, seriously...I'm squealing...I want this book so badly and am hoping hoping hoping that it's as good as it sounds!!!!


What do you think of this week's choice??
Do you want to read it as much as I do??

Can't Wait Wednesday - Seven Days of Us

Linking up with Wishful Endings today :)

Every week, I skim through the "Coming Soon" list at Barnes and Noble for the following week.  

I love looking at the covers and selecting finalists for my upcoming favorites.
Yes, I'm a book nerd.

If I find a cover that interests me, then I open it up and read the blurb...there are way too many books to read for me to waste one more second, so a book has to grab me...where I am in that moment.
And most of the time I can't even predict what that moment looks like.
It's up to the book really ;)

I force myself to stop at 1 choice.
1
That's it.

Without further adieu, here's my Can't Wait choice among the "Coming Soon" selections on Barnes and Noble for the week of October 16, 2017:

The Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak

Here's the synopsis from Barnes and Noble: 

(I've highlighted in red the parts that yell at me loud and clear that I must read this book!)

A warm, wry, sharply observed debut novel about what happens when a family is forced to spend a week together in quarantine over the holidays...

It’s Christmas, and for the first time in years the entire Birch family will be under one roof. Even Emma and Andrew’s elder daughter—who is usually off saving the world—will be joining them at Weyfield Hall, their aging country estate. But Olivia, a doctor, is only coming home because she has to. Having just returned from treating an epidemic abroad, she’s been told she must stay in quarantine for a week…and so too should her family.

For the next seven days, the Birches are locked down, cut off from the rest of humanity—and even decent Wi-Fi—and forced into each other’s orbits. Younger, unabashedly frivolous daughter Phoebe is fixated on her upcoming wedding, while her older sister, Olivia, deals with the culture shock of being immersed in first-world problems. 

Their father, Andrew, sequesters himself in his study writing scathing restaurant reviews and remembering his glory days as a war correspondent. But his wife, Emma, is hiding a secret that will turn the whole family upside down.   

In close proximity, not much can stay hidden for long, and as revelations and long-held tensions come to light, nothing is more shocking than the unexpected guest who’s about to arrive…

Have you heard anything about this author or this particular title? 

What do you think?

Day 412 - Can't Wait Wednesday - The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson

I've picked up Joshilyn Jackson's books many times...but have always put them back down for one reason or another...I keep seeing this one though...early readers are saying it's the one to read...

The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson

Here's the synopsis and first remarks from Amazon: 

(I've highlighted in red the parts that yell at me loud and clear that I must read this book!)

With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the author of gods in Alabama pens a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the distinctions between perception and reality---the stories we tell ourselves about our origins and who we really are.

Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs’ weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman.

It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She’s having a baby boy—an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old’s life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her step-sister Rachel’s marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind, and she’s been hiding her dementia with the help of Wattie, her best friend since girlhood.

Leia returns to Alabama to put her grandmother’s affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and tell her family that she’s pregnant. Yet just when Leia thinks she’s got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie’s been hiding. Tucked in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family’s freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows.

The Almost Sisters will be published on July 11...I'm not so excited about it that I will pay full price for it, but if I'm every going to give Joshilyn Jackson a try, I think this is most definitely the book!


What have you heard about The Almost Sisters?
Have you read any other Joshilyn Jackson?

"Can't Wait Wednesday" is hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings :)