This week’s TTT topic is favorite books written over ten years ago. I decided to revisit bookclub selections from 2010. I was pleasantly surprised that our picks that year would still be on a recommended list. I’ve included all twelve — there’s plenty to choose from.
For more nostalgic reading recs, visit That Artsy Reader Girl.
Book Club Picks from 2010
Chasing Fireflies by Charles Martin
Distant Echoes by Colleen Coble
Face of Betrayal by Lis Wiehl and April Henry
Greater Love by Robert Whitlow
Her Daughter’s Dream by Francine Rivers
Her Mother’s Hope by Francine Rivers
Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs
The Hope of Refuge by Cindy Woodsmall
Listen by Rene Gutteridge
The Night Watchman by Mark Mynheir
Predator by Terri Blackstock (now free with Amazon Prime)
This week’s TTT prompt is books that need an epilogue. I tweaked this a bit, of course. I don’t need more of one story, I need more books by my favorite authors. My list consists of authors who haven’t published anything new in a while. For some it has only been a couple of years (I am impatient like that), but for others I’ve been waiting a long time. The authors write in a variety of genres, so if you haven’t yet discovered them, I promise you will find a new favorite too.
Today’s Top 10 Tuesday topic is favorite places to read. Since I will read anywhere, I thought it would be a fun twist to match books to the Dr. Seuss-style poem about reading (many thanks to Seuss’ Green Eggs And Ham for the poet’s inspiration). While I had to stretch some of the connections, I think you will forgive me as the books I am sharing are awesome!
Happy Tuesday! This week’s Top 10 Tuesday topic is books read in one sitting. It’s funny that now that I am retired and have no children at home it takes me longer to read a book than it used to. Maybe in my *ahem* younger and busier years I knew that my available reading time was limited. Who knows? While I no longer read books in one sitting, I do read some faster than others. These are usually in my favorite genre — mystery/suspense — and just naturally keep me turning the pages. My list today includes recent reads as well as those from years ago that I really did read in one sitting, many of which are part of a series (more good reads!). I hope you find one that will keep you turning those pages too. 🙂
Happy Friday! Only 7 more days until Christmas! It doesn’t seem real does it. I know a lot of your Christmas celebrations will be different this year. We are trying to protect my MIL by staggering family visits. We have friends grieving losses due to Covid and others who are fighting cancer and other chronic diseases. It seems too much somehow. I have been a bit emotional this week with all that is going on, and that leads to more distraction and less reading for me. After I hit publish, I am going to try to get my reading mojo back on and escape into a great book.
So do you read less or more during Christmas? Do you find relaxation in the pages of the book or do all the distractions of the season keep you from focusing? (I am not counting time with friends and family a distraction 😉 ). If you need a good escape, do I have a book for you! Actually, a whole series. You’re welcome! Rene Gutteridge is one of my favorite authors and her Boo series is so much fun. This week I am featuring the first sentence of BooHumbug. It is such a fun Christmas novella. You need to read the whole series though. Again, you’re welcome. 😉
Here’s the first line:
“Think outside the box,” Mr. Watson implored as his gaze fell over his students, all clustered together on the stage floor, their backs erect with enthusiasm.
It’s Christmastime in Skary, Indiana, but the holiday season has been hijacked by maverick director Lois Stepaphanopolis as she attempts to bring her horror-ific vision of A Christmas Carol to life. But the holly-decked path from page to stage is a thorny one, as Lois attempts to rally her skeptical cast, including new father Wolfe Boone, and then she learns that her reluctant marketing director, Alfred Tennison, is truly a Christmas Scrooge.
Alfred’s grassroots marketing plan proves more than successful as the buzz builds that Skary should anticipate an overflowing audience for their opening night —  but a crucial miscommunication leaves the visiting theatergoers expecting of a very different Christmas production. As chaos ensues, can the actors pull off an improv miracle — and can the Skary community convince their own Scrooge to embrace the true meaning of Christmas?
Rene Gutteridge is the author of 24 novels, including Misery Loves Company, Possession, Listen, Never the Bride (2011 Carol Award Winner), The Boo Series, The Storm Series, The Occupational Hazards Series, My Life as a Doormat (now a Hallmark movie called Love’s Complicated) and Love’s a Stage. She has a degree in Mass Communications with an emphasis in screenwriting and twenty years of experience writing, directing and publishing comedy sketches. She writes in both comedy and suspense genres. She is also a full-time screenwriter for The Skit Guys.
This week, Top 10 Tuesday is talking about Non-Book Hobbies. Is there such a thing? 😉 I admit to books being just about everything in my spare time. I do crochet a bit and I enjoy the outdoors at our north Georgia cabin and I play at baking, but I don’t have a green thumb, I am not a gourmet, travel is at a standstill now, and my mom’s hobby — housecleaning — doesn’t appeal. So, there you have it! Makes for a boring blog post.
I decided to feature a few books that would appeal to a range of hobbyists. Hope you find one that fits into your extrabookular activities.
Top Non-Book Hobbies Books!
Art
A Fool And His Monet by Sandra Orchard
Serena Jones has a passion for recovering lost and stolen art — one that’s surpassed only by her zeal to uncover the truth about the art thief who murdered her grandfather. She’s joined the FBI Art Crime Team with the secret hope that one of her cases will lead to his killer. Now, despite her mother’s pleas to do something safer –like get married — Serena’s learning how to go undercover to catch thieves and black market traders.
When a local museum discovers an irreplaceable Monet missing, Jones leaps into action. The clues point in different directions, and her boss orders her to cease investigating her most promising suspect. But determined to solve the case and perhaps discover another clue in her grandfather’s murder, she pushes ahead, regardless of the danger.
Baking
All’s Fair in Love And Cupcakes by Betsy St. Amant
Kat Varland has had enough of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.
At twenty-six years old, Kat is still living in the shadows of her family in Bayou Bend, Louisiana. Still working shifts at her Aunt Maggie’s bakery. Still wondering what to do with her passion for baking and her business degree. And still single. But when Lucas Brannen, Kat’s best friend, signs her up for a reality TV bake-off on Cupcake Combat, everything Kat ever wanted is suddenly dangled in front of her: creative license as a baker, recognition as a visionary . . . and a job at a famous bakery in New York.
As the competition heats up, Lucas realizes he might have made a huge mistake. As much as he wants the best for Kat, the only thing he wants for himself — her — is suddenly in danger of slipping away.
The bright lights of reality cooking wars and the chance at a successful career dazzle Kat’s senses and Lucas is faced with a difficult choice: help his friend achieve her dreams . . . or sabotage her chances to keep her in Louisiana.
Collecting
Lady of A Thousand Treasures by Sandra Byrd
Miss Eleanor Sheffield is a talented evaluator of antiquities, trained to know the difference between a genuine artifact and a fraud. But with her father’s passing and her uncle’s decline into dementia, the family business is at risk. In the Victorian era, unmarried Eleanor cannot run Sheffield Brothers alone.
The death of a longtime client, Baron Lydney, offers an unexpected complication when Eleanor is appointed the temporary trustee of the baron’s legendary collection. She must choose whether to donate the priceless treasures to a museum or allow them to pass to the baron’s only living son, Harry — the man who broke Eleanor’s heart.
Eleanor distrusts the baron’s motives and her own ability to be unbiased regarding Harry’s future. Harry claims to still love her and Eleanor yearns to believe him, but his mysterious comments and actions fuel her doubts. When she learns an Italian beauty accompanied him on his return to England, her lingering hope for a future with Harry dims.
With the threat of debtor’s prison closing in, Eleanor knows that donating the baron’s collection would win her favor among potential clients, saving Sheffield Brothers. But the more time she spends with Harry, the more her faith in him grows. Might Harry be worthy of his inheritance, and her heart, after all? As pressures mount and time runs out, Eleanor must decide whom she can trust — who in her life is false or true, brass or gold — and what is meant to be treasured.
Gardening
Like A Watered Garden by Patti Hill
“I received a box of flowers from my dead husband.”
Life has stalled for Colorado garden designer Mibby Garrett after losing her husband in a bicycle accident six months ago. Mibby devotes herself to avoiding “whammies o’ grief,” the painful and sudden reminders of her former life. But for her son, she’s willing to face anything. With the support of the indomitable Louise, friend and neighbor, and her faithful gardening clients, Mibby even considers romance with a too-good-to-be-true widower. Then comes the biggest whammy of all, a stranger with a claim to her husband’s heart. Will Mibby retreat or sound the charge on life?
Music
Song of Silence by Cynthia Ruchti
Lucy and Charlie Tuttle agree on one thing: they’re committed to each other for life. Trouble is, neither of them expected life to look like this. While Charlie retired early, Lucy is devoted to a long-term career . . . until the day she has no choice.
Forced to retire from her position as music educator in a small Midwestern K-8 school, Lucy can only watch helplessly as the program her father started years ago disintegrates before her eyes. As the music fades and a chasm separates her from the passion of her heart, Lucy wonders if her faith’s song has gone silent, too. The musical score of her life seems to be missing all the notes.
When a simple misstep threatens to silence Lucy forever, a young boy and his soundless mother change the way she sees — and hears — everything.
Quilting
Rival Hearts by Tara Randel
They both want the promotion. But will they find out that it is worth the cost?
Molly Henderson and Ben Weaver have been rival magazine writers for the same publishing group for years. When both come up for the same promotion, they find themselves in an unexpected competition to win the spot. Molly, editor of Quilter’s Heart, and Ben, editor of Outdoor Adventures, must switch roles, each working for the other for one month, then submit an article at the end of their quests. Can girly-girl Molly survive the outdoor adventures that Ben has planned? Can Ben navigate the perils of the social dynamics of quilting events without destroying a valuable quilt in one short month? More importantly, in this he-said, she-said situation, will Molly and Ben give in to their attraction and fall in love, no matter who wins?
Writing
Ghost Writer by Rene Gutteridge
Jonathan Harper is a fiction editor at a publishing house who devotes all of his time to work, and is slowly drifting away from his family. While proof reading a story about a serial killer written by his best friend and father figure Clyde, he begins to receive a story from an anonymous source that is eerily similar to his own life. It contains details no one else could possibly know, details about his childhood and his marriage. As the suspense builds, Jonathan is forced to confront the demons in his own life as he seeks to understand the mystery behind the story.
I have never been to Indiana, but one of my best friends was born and raised there and sings her home state’s praises. She travels back there every summer to spend 2 (she says glorious) weeks at her family’s lakefront cabin. So in honor of Beth, I am taking my blog on a Reading Road Trip to the Crossroads of America —Â Indiana.
Of the books I have read that are set in Indiana, only one is historical fiction. If you know of any other titles, I would love to add them to my TBR pile!
Reading Road Trip — Indiana
Wings Like A Dove by Camille Eide
Can the invisible walls that separate people ever come down?
In 1933, Anna Leibowicz is convinced that the American dream that brought her Jewish family here from Poland is nothing but an illusion. Her father has vanished. Her dreams of college can’t make it past the sweat-shop door. And when she discovers to her shame and horror that she’s with child, her mother gives her little choice but to leave her family. Deciding her best course of action is to try to find her father, she strikes out…hoping against hope to somehow redeem them both.
When Anna stumbles upon a house full of orphan boys in rural Indiana who are in desperate need of a tutor, she agrees to postpone her journey. But she knows from the moment she meets their contemplative, deep-hearted caretaker, Thomas Chandler, that she doesn’t dare risk staying too long. She can’t afford to open her heart to them, to him. She can’t risk letting her secrets out.
All too soon, the townspeople realize she’s not like them and treat her with the same disdain they give the Sisters of Mercy — the nuns who help Thomas and the boys — and Samuel, the quiet colored boy Thomas has taken in. With the Klan presence in the town growing ever stronger and the danger to this family increasing the longer she stays, Anna is torn between fleeing to keep them safe . . . and staying to fight beside them.
Oh, that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest . . .
Before I Saw You by Amy K. Sorrells
Folks are dying fast as the ash trees in the southern Indiana town ravaged by the heroin epidemic, where Jaycee Givens lives with nothing more than a thread of hope and a quirky neighbor, Sudie, who rescues injured wildlife. After a tragedy leaves her mother in prison, Jaycee is carrying grief and an unplanned pregnancy she conceals because she trusts no one, including the kind and handsome Gabe, who is new to town and to the local diner where she works.
Dividing her time between the diner and Sudie’s place, Jaycee nurses her broken heart among a collection of unlikely friends who are the closest thing to family that she has. Eventually, she realizes she can’t hide her pregnancy any longer―not even from the baby’s abusive father, who is furious when he finds out. The choices she must make for the safety of her unborn child threaten to derail any chance she ever had for hope and redemption. Ultimately, Jaycee must decide whether the truest form of love means hanging on or letting go.
Lead Me Home by Amy K. Sorrells
Amid open fields and empty pews, small towns can crush big dreams.
Abandoned by his no-good father and forced to grow up too soon, Noble Burden has set his dreams aside to run the family farm. Meanwhile, James Horton, the pastor of the local church, questions his own calling as he prepares to close the doors for good.
As a severe storm rolls through, threatening their community and very livelihood, both men fear losing what they care about most . . . and reconsider where they truly belong.
Barefoot Summer by Denise Hunter
Madison’s heart has been closed for years. But one summer can change everything.
In the years since her twin brother’s drowning, Madison McKinley has struggled to put it behind her. Despite the support of her close-knit family and her gratifying job as a veterinarian in their riverside town, the loss still haunts her.
To find closure, Madison sets out to fulfill her brother’s dream of winning the town’s annual regatta. But first she has to learn to sail, and fast.
Beckett O’Reilly knows Madison is out of his league, but someone neglected to tell his heart. Now she needs his help—and he’ll give it, because he owes her far more than she’ll ever know.
Madison will do anything—even work with the infamous Beckett O’Reilly—to reach her goal. And as much as she’d like to deny it, the chemistry between them is electrifying. As summer wanes, her feelings for him grow and a fledgling faith takes root in her heart.
But Beckett harbors a secret that will test the limits of their new love. Can their romance survive summer’s challenges? And will achieving her brother’s dream give Madison the peace she desperately seeks?
Boo by Rene Gutteridge
For sixteen years, reclusive horror novelist Wolfe “Boo” Boone has been Skary, Indiana’s greatest attraction, turning the once-struggling town into a thriving tourist trap for the dark side. But then a newly reformed Wolfe quits the genre and starts to pursue Skary’s favorite girl-next-door. Truly horrified, the little town he made famous hatches a scheme to get their most famous resident out of love and back into the thrill business.
Home to Harmony by Philip Gulley
Welcome to Harmony …
In this acclaimed inaugural volume in the Harmony series, master American storyteller Philip Gulley draws us into the charming world of minister Sam Gardner in his first year back in his hometown, capturing the essence of small-town life with humor and wisdom.
It has been some years since I have had to worry about all things back to school — supply lists, endless forms to sign, open houses, etc. My youngest son is in his final year of law school, but he resists first day pictures. 😉 So all I have is a list of books that loosely align with course titles. And while they probably won’t appear on any syllabus, they are definitely required reading! So whether your nest is empty or you still find yourself in the interminable car riders line, here are some books I recommend you check out. Enjoy!
Yep, that is the official definition of novella, the subject of this week’s Top Ten Tuesday. As in the case of their longer cousins, novellas span genres and styles — historical, contemporary, suspense, romance — there is something for everyone! Looking at the varying forms novellas take, I have come up with a few categories. What do you think?
The Complimentary Novella — books that are written to introduce or compliment a novel series. These help to fill in the blanks, as well as entice a reader with a quick read. They are often prequels to the main story.
An Awakened Heart (An Orphan Train Novella) by Jody Hedund
Then Came You (A Bradford Sisters novella) by Becky Wade
Interrelated Novella Collection — these 2-4 novella collections often have several authors all writing within a continuing storyline. The examples I have chosen either follow different members of a family, involve characters connected with a place, and/or tell the story from different characters’ points of view.
Serialized Novellas — a series of individually published novellas (not part of a published collection) that follow a character, or group of characters, and are written by a single author.
Boo series by Rene Guttering (there are 4 in the series)
In The President’s Service series by Ace Collins (there are 14 books in this series, I have included the covers of the first 2)
Summer of The Burning Sky series by Susan May Warren (a third is due out in August)
Thematic novella collections — several novellas published together and united by a common theme or subject matter. They often involve several authors.
Sins of The Pastby Dee Henderson, Lynette Eason, and Dani Pettrey
Standalone Novellas — a complete, unto itself story, just in novella length. I have found that there are lots of novellas published with Christmas themes — great for quick reading during a very busy time of year.
I love, love, love suspense! And I have a few go-to authors that I must read. Some of their books are so good that I just cannot put them down. It’s a blessing and a curse! A blessing because I know when I buy their books I will be in for a twisting, turning good time. A curse because the ride, like those at amusement parks, are over much too quickly! LOL!
For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke And The Bookish, I have 5 authors that have books that are easily read in one sitting. To find out what other bloggers are sharing this week, click HERE.
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