Happy Hump Day! It’s Wednesday, and in an effort to be more active in sharing and seeing what everyone else is up to in their reading, I am participating in this week’s WWW Wednesday. WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words, where bloggers share the books that answer these three questions (the Three Ws):
- What are you currently reading?
- What did you recently finish reading?
- What do you think you’ll read next?
If you want to participate and you have a blog, answer the three questions above and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. If you do not have a blog, leave a comment with your responses. Have fun, and check out what other participants are reading. You may just find your next great read.
Note: There are affiliate links in this post and if you click on them and make a purchase, we will earn a commission from it. We appreciate your support and thank you in advance.
***I encourage you to support your local bookshops by purchasing from Bookshop.org, however, if you prefer to purchase from Amazon, the following links will direct you there. The books mentioned in this post are:
Disappearing Acts by Terry McMillan
Underneath the Sycamore Tree by B. Celeste
Angola is Wherever I Plant My Field by João Melo, Translated by Lusia Venturini
For Lamb by Lesa Cline-Ransome
Note: All book descriptions are from Bookshop.org.
currently reading
Disappearing Acts by Terry McMillan
I started Disappearing Acts mid-month for a book club discussion and did not finish it in time for the discussion or before the ebook was returned to the library. Luckily, the renewal request I put in allowed me to check it out sooner than I expected. If December is nice to me, I’ll be able to finish it before the year is up. So far, I’m really enjoying the drama and the complex relationship between the two main characters. I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up giving it a high rating upon completing it.
Description
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Terry McMillan comes an honest look at a modern romance, from love at first sight to painful reality to working toward a happy ending….
Franklin Swift was a sometimes-employed construction worker and a not-quite-divorced dad of two. Zora Banks was a teacher, singer, and songwriter. They met in a Brooklyn brownstone, and there could be no walking away….
In this funny, gritty love story, Franklin and Zora join the ranks of fiction’s most compelling couples as they move from Scrabble to sex, from layoffs to the limits of faith and trust.
Disappearing Acts is about the mystery of desire and the burdens of the past. It’s about respect–what it can and can’t survive. And it’s about the safe and secret places that only love can find.
The Villa by Rachel Hawkins
The Villa is my first NetGalley ARC and I want to make sure I read it before its publishing date, January 3, 2023. I surprisingly got approved for it and immediately began reading it last night. So far, the writing has a good flow and I’m intrigued to see what happens to this longtime friendship. If this book gets a high rating, it may propel me to pick up the other Rachel Hawkins books I have on my TBR (To Be Read) list.
Description
From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins comes a deliciously wicked gothic suspense, set at an Italian villa with a dark history, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.
As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend.
Villa Aestas in Orvieto is a high-end holiday home now, but in 1974, it was known as Villa Rosato, and rented for the summer by a notorious rock star, Noel Gordon. In an attempt to reignite his creative spark, Noel invites up-and-coming musician, Pierce Sheldon to join him, as well as Pierce’s girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister, Lara. But he also sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Mari writing one of the greatest horror novels of all time, Lara composing a platinum album–and ends in Pierce’s brutal murder.
As Emily digs into the villa’s complicated history, she begins to think there might be more to the story of that fateful summer in 1974. That perhaps Pierce’s murder wasn’t just a tale of sex, drugs, and rock & roll gone wrong, but that something more sinister might have occurred–and that there might be clues hidden in the now-iconic works that Mari and Lara left behind.
Yet the closer that Emily gets to the truth, the more tension she feels developing between her and Chess. As secrets from the past come to light, equally dangerous betrayals from the present also emerge–and it begins to look like the villa will claim another victim before the summer ends.
Inspired by Fleetwood Mac, the Manson murders, and the infamous summer Percy and Mary Shelley spent with Lord Byron at a Lake Geneva castle–the birthplace of Frankenstein-–The Villa welcomes you into its deadly legacy.
recently finished
Ayiti by Roxane Gay
Ayiti is my 100th book read in 2022 and it’s a 5-star. I must get a physical copy for my library. I recommend this book to readers who want something short and thoughtful.
I do intend to post a review in December for books read in November. For now, my gist from Readerly is succinct and should be sufficient in getting you to pick up the book.
Description
*Roxane Gay is an award-winning literary voice praised for her fearless and vivid prose, and her debut collection Ayiti* exemplifies the raw talent that made her “one of the voices of our age” (National Post, Canada).
The powerful debut collection exploring the Haitian diaspora experience from New York Times-bestselling powerhouse Roxane Gay, now widely available for the first time in Grove Press paperback.
Clever and haunting by turns, *Ayiti* explores the Haitian diaspora experience. A married couple seeking boat passage to America prepares to leave their homeland. A mother takes a foreign soldier into her home as a boarder, and into her bed. And a woman conceives a daughter on the bank of a river while fleeing a horrific massacre, a daughter who later moves to America for a new life but is perpetually haunted by the mysterious scent of blood.
Wise, fanciful, and daring, *Ayiti* is the book that put Roxane Gay on the map and now, with two previously uncollected stories, confirms her singular vision.
reading next
I do not have any books in mind to read outside of some other NetGalley ARCs that are due to release in January 2023. That could change by next Wednesday’s WWW Wednesday post. For now, the books listed below are on the docket as ‘Next Up’ reads.
Underneath the Sycamore Tree by B. Celeste
Description
Time is a luxury we don’t all have…
Emery Matterson’s life has been broken for a while. First, she lost her twin sister to an incurable autoimmune disease, then her father left, then her mother fell apart when Emery herself was diagnosed with the same disease that killed her sister. The only option for Emery seems to be to move in with the father she hasn’t seen in ten years, and start over.
Enter Kaiden Monroe, the brooding athlete who has baggage of his own. Kaiden makes Emery feel normal. Hated. Cared for. Loathed. And…loved. Somewhere along the way, Emery finds solace in the guy with the sad eyes.
But everything happens in stages. And nothing good ever lasts.
From fan-favorite author B. Celeste comes an raw, real, and unforgettable story of love and loss between two young people grappling with the harsh reality of invisible disease.
Angola is Wherever I Plant My Field by João Melo, Translated by Lusia Venturini
Description
In this collection of eighteen humorous absurdist stories, Melo weaves together postmodernism, postcolonial realities and Angolan history, through an intrusive narrator and author. Angola is Wherever I plant My field will make the readers laugh as they reflect on life and society through stories set in Luanda, Haifa, America, and North-Korea.
For Lamb by Lesa Cline-Ransome
Description
An interracial friendship between two teenaged girls goes tragically wrong in this powerful historical novel set in the Jim Crow South.
For Lamb follows a family striving to better their lives in the late 1930s Jackson, Mississippi. Lamb’s mother is a hard-working, creative seamstress who cannot reveal she is a lesbian. Lamb’s brother has a brilliant mind and has even earned a college scholarship for a black college up north– if only he could curb his impulsiveness and rebellious nature.
Lamb herself is a quiet and studious girl. She is also naive. As she tentatively accepts the friendly overtures of a white girl who loans her a book she loves, she sets a off a calamitous series of events that pulls in her mother, charming hustler uncle, estranged father, and brother, and ends in a lynching.
Told with nuance and subtlety, avoiding sensationalism and unnecessary brutality, this young adult novel from celebrated author Lesa Cline-Ransome pays homage to the female victims of white supremacy.
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
QOTD (Questions of the Day)
(as if you didn’t already see it at the beginning of the post lol)
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
Let me know in the comments below.
Happy Reading!
