WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam at Taking On a World of Words. In it, each blogger answers three questions:
- What are you currently reading?
- What have you recently finished?
- What will you read next?
What am I currently reading?
Having literally just finished both my other reads, I haven’t actually started either of my “current” reads, which puts me in a bit of a gray area. I will be starting the audiobook, A Midlife Gamble, the conclusion to Cary J. Hansson’s Midlife series I have so far enjoyed very much. For some reason, upon finishing A Midlife Baby, I didn’t think the conclusion had been released yet! Little did I know it came out last May!!! And I’m starting An Inheritance of Magic by Benedict Jacka. Both look like pretty quick reads. And I’m absolutely loving the cover of the Jacka book.
What have I just finished reading?
This has been a pretty exciting week for me in regards to productivity in reading. Of course, that means I now find myself about four book reviews behind but I’m going to do my best to remedy that in the next few days. I was able to finish two reads in the past 24 hours. The first is The Outsider by Stephen King. This was a monster book, more than 500 pages, but it was a pretty quick read. The second one was Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. I would like to ruminate on this one for a few days. It’s definitely a profound and timely read and I find myself quite conflicted about how I feel at this moment. I literally finished it about a half hour ago.
What will I read next?
I still have two books out from my latest library run. The first is Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein by Anne Eekhout. The second one is The Prospectors by Ariel Djanikian. Both of these are historical fiction titles. I’m most looking forward to the Eekhout book, though I’m a bit nervous to tackle it, because Shelley is very near and dear to my heart and I hope the book does her story justice! That’s it for me for this week. Until we meet again, happy reading!
There’s always room for another creepy old house story. I don’t particularly want to live in one, but I sure love reading about them. There’s another Kate Collins out there writing cozy mysteries with delightful titles such as “Dearly Depotted” and “Sleeping With Anenome” and, note to self, I need to check out this Flower Shop Mystery series. However, this is not THAT Kate Collins, as there’s nothing fluffy about A Good House for Children. This is the debut novel of Ms. Collins, an Irish-born writer now living and working in England. 
Ok, I’m going to start off by saying that I now know I am absolutely not the target audience for this book. When I choose a book, I automatically look at genre tags. This one was NOT tagged as Christian fiction on the Hoopla app. It is on goodreads, so I wish I had checked there first. I guess that’s why I’d never heard of Colleen Coble. She’s obviously not in my wheelhouse. Rather, this was called “romantic suspense,” which I guess is the Christian equivalent of thriller. Translation: there will be lots of schmaltz (BUT ABSOLUTELY NO SEX) and you’ll do a bit of nail biting but, otherwise, your delicate sensibilities will be intact upon completion. Are you starting to see why I’m not the target audience? I’m not going to make this review a critique of Christianity at all, so please don’t think I’m judging an entire religion, but I will be judging the hell out of this book on literary merits, and some of that is rooted in the fact that this genre gleefully does a crap job at story building in the guise of “keeping it clean.”
I’m still a little up in the air on what I will start after I finish The Outsider. More than likely it will be 
Kevin Sites is an award-winning journalist who published three nonfiction books using his expertise as a war correspondent prior to the release of this one, but this is his debut work of fiction. The novel follows Lukas Landon, a former war correspondent who takes a job aboard the shrimping trawler, Philomena, in order to write a piece about the crew. After a terrifying storm, Landon finds himself inside the vessel at the bottom of the ocean, fighting to stay alive within his little air pocket that developed around him when the ship overturned and sank.
This is a book I picked up for a very specific reason. My father has become thoroughly enthralled, obsessed almost, with the subject of ancestry. He’s on a mission to trace nearly every line of our family tree as far as it will go, and it turns out, the subject of this novel is my Great however-so-many it may be Grandpappy. Dad acquired Chadwick’s book series about William Marshal and now I’m reading them as well. This first book is more of a prequel, as it follows William’s father, John Fitzgilbert, or John Marshal. John was marshal to King Henry I, inheriting the title from his father, Gilbert Giffard, sometime prior to 1130. This book begins here, moving into the death of King Henry which begins the civil war between the Empress Matilda and King Stephen. The novel illustrates John’s instrumental role as a skilled tactician during the war and brings us up through the end of the war in 1153, in which William is an adorable addition (but a VERY important one) as a feisty 5-year-old.
Well, here’s to a pretty good reading start in 2024. I guess there’s a perk to the fact that I’ve pretty much been sick since NOVEMBER! I had non-Covid and then I had Covid and then when the Covid was gone I was back to just the standard non-Covid still coughing my head off but still having to go about my daily business. At least I was able to read some books, right? For the first time in years my goodreads challenge tells me I’m actually ahead of schedule! Let’s dive in!
So, naturally, if I add the category of “Productivity Book,” to my reading challenge for this year, the Universe sends me a sign. It took one look inside my closets and kitchen pantry and sighed heavily. Unsurprisingly, the very same week, this delightful little tome shows up on Hoopla under my “Recommended for You” titles. Thanks, Universe. I feel very seen and judged right now. 
A Librarian and Her Books 