Book Journey

The Guilty One by Lisa Ballantyne

Published on March 27, 2013March 27, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)20 Comments

An eight year old neighborhood boy is found dead in a playground. When witnesses come forth as to saying he was recently seen playing and rough housing with another neighborhood boy, 11-year-old Sebastian, Sebastian and his mother are called in for questioning.

The defense solicitor, Daniel Hunter is called in to hear Sebastian’s story and defend him if necessary. While Daniel’s own troubled childhood has led him to a life of working with young children, he has never worked with one as young as an eleven year old.

Sebastian has the look of an angel, a small delicate boy with shiny intelligent eyes. Yet when Sebastian speaks he does not talk like an eleven year old, his speak and ability to catch on are beyond his years. Daniel still has a strong sense that Sebastian is not guilty of this crime.

As the case opens wider, Daniel has to check himself to make sure his own past is not clouding his judgement. Leading him to walk that fine line between truth and lies.

Holy crackers batman. Get ready for a twisted ride. This book has a little something for everyone who likes a good mystery and/or adventure. Lacking in neither, The Guilty One will definitely make you think as you watch Sebastian’s life and family slowly peel back hidden layer after layer. Honestly… you really never know your neighbors do you?

But wait… while we start to see Sebastian’s life unfold, the reader also sees where Daniel is coming from and this guy has a lot of crazy past himself which makes him so right for this case…. but also so wrong. If anything, it’s really hard to get a firm grip on who Daniel is (in my opinion) and why I should want to sympathize with him.

I would say over all, the book is engaging and it did have me trying to figure it out (which I enjoy) and did hold me all the way through. If I had one complaint – and its a rather small one – I would say it gets a little bogged down in the details mid way through and I wanted things to move on… move faster.

People who enjoy a good mystery with a nice dash of CRAZY sauce that is not fast paced will enjoy this book. It was well written and impressive as a debut book.

Six Years by Harlan Coben

Published on March 26, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)28 Comments

Six years ago Jake Fisher met the girl of his dreams. Natalie came into his life like an answered prayer. They had a whirlwind romance, and Jake could not imagine life ever being any better and he felt they would be together forever. Then, as suddenly as Natalie had walked into his life, she walked out. Claiming a love for someone else, someone named Todd Sanderson who she had once dated.

Jake, heartbroken and helpless can do nothing as his dreams of a future with Natalie vaporize into thin air. When she marries Todd shortly after, Jake has to see the wedding for himself still not believing that his Natalie was gone. But as he watched her say “I do”, and slip a ring on her finger, there is no denying that she has moved on. Before Natalie leaves the chapel she asks Jake to promise to never look for her, to never try to contact her. And helplessly, he promises.

Now, six years later and working as a College Professor, an obituary he stumbles upon on-line captures his eye. Todd Sanderson has died. Suddenly Jake’s promise doesn’t seem to hold as he vows to go to the funeral and see his Natalie, one more time. Yet the woman who mourns for the loss of her husband is not Natalie, and crazier yet, this woman has been married to Todd for over 20 years.

As Todd tried to go back to where Natalie and he had met to look for clues as to what has happened and where she went people who they knew together act as they do not know him… and the more bizarre it becomes, the more Todd digs in, letting go of a six-year promise, and trying to find the truth…

Holy smokes…. there is nothing like a good read bu Harlan Coben to put your reading mojo on the right track. When I opened this book a few days ago the plan was to read a few pages just to get the feel for what it was about. That was enough to hook me and have trouble putting it down until I turned that last delicious page.

There are so many wonderful reasons I like Coben’s writing. I tell people that Stephen King is hard and dark and sometimes far out there, than Dean Koontz is a mellower version of King, a little funnier, still dark…. then there is Coben. Coben grabs the reader and entangles you in the story before you have a chance to walk away, he is funny and witty, rarely dark, and I love all of that.

The woman at the desk had a helmety beehive hairdo last seen on a senator’s wife circa 1964. She hit me with a smile so wooden I could have knocked on it for luck.

~ page 389

Six Years was a delight to read. A great protagonist, a believable storyline… do not hesitate to become a new Harlan Coben devoted fan by reading this book. Just remember you can not be president of his fan club, because I am pretty sure that would be me. 😀

On another fun note… Six Years was part of a bidding war for rights to the movie and Paramount won and Hugh Jackman will play Jake. Awesome right?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on March 24, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)56 Comments

Welcome to It’s Monday! What Are You Reading! This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!

I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme I love to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme. I offer a weekly contest for those who visit 10 or more of the Monday Meme participants and leave a comment telling me how many you visited. **You do not have to have a blog to participate! You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.

Under the new and hopefully improved 2013 guidelines, the winner each week will receive a $5 Amazon gift card. This past weeks winner is:

Charlotte!!!!

What a week! I spent much of last weekend and the first part of the week sick, then went right into the three day Friends Of The Library book sale which was a lot of fun but a lot of work too. Today has been my first kick back and relax day in over a week and I took full advantage… put books away in the book room, listened to audio, read a bit, and yes.. I had a nap. 😀

Here are the posts that did go up this past week:

The First Warm Evening Of The Year by Jamie M Saul (wow!)

March With Me by Rosalie Turner (a fictional story around the non fictional Children’s March of 1963.)

Book sale recap and a chance for you to win one of my finds!

I haven’t accomplished much for this past week and seem to be deep into the audio books I have going so lets see.. what is next:

Six years have passed since Jake Fisher watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd.

But six years haven’t come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd’s obituary, he can’t keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the glimpse of Todd’s wife he’s hoping for…but she is not Natalie. Whoever the mourning widow is, she’s been married to Todd for almost two decades, and with that fact everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life—a time he has never gotten over—is turned completely inside out.

As Jake searches for the truth, his picture-perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual friends of the couple either can’t be found, or don’t remember Jake. No one has seen Natalie in years. Jake’s search for the woman who broke his heart, who lied to him, soon puts his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he has become may be based on a carefully constructed fiction.

OOH – if you have not read Coben you are missing out, I may finish this one tonight!

The closing of the grand old Fauborg Hotel in Beverly Hills is a sad occasion for longtime patrons Alex Delaware and Robin Castagna, who go there one last time for cocktails. But even more poignant—and curious—is a striking young woman in elegant attire and dark glasses, alone there and waiting in vain. Two days later, police detective Milo Sturgis comes seeking his psychologist comrade’s insights about a grisly homicide. To Alex’s shock, the brutalized victim is the same beautiful woman whose lonely hours sipping champagne at the Fauborg may have been her last. But when a sordid revelation finally cracks the case open, the secrets that spill out could make Alex and Milo’s best efforts to close this crime not just impossible but fatal.

I picked this one up at the book sale this week.

There is probably more but I have spent too much time writing this post so I am going to move on. 😀 How about you – what are you reading and how is your reading this time of year? Add your post to the line below where it says click here.

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Morning Meanderings! Book Sale!!! YOU Choose which one you want!

Published on March 24, 2013March 24, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)99 Comments

Good morning.

It’s snowing.

😯

Ok, I just had to get the “S” word out-of-the-way so I could move on to better things. You have not heard a peep out of my on this site in days. From Thursday afternoon (after work) on, I have been at The Brainerd Library sale helping with the sale. I was there 5 hours on Thursday, 12.5 hours on Friday, and 9.5 on Saturday. 27 hours surrounded by books, helping people with books, talking books, looks for certain books, hauling books out to cars, straightening books, toting empty boxes to the basement…. if it was bookish… I probably did it in the last 3 days.

Let me start with Thursday morning when the sale opened…

My friend Wendy (you will see here waving in the pictures) and I were in the Library parking lot by 6:15 am Thursday morning. (TRADITION!!!!) Yes, the library sale does not open up until 9:00 am and yes, it is true that it was 8 below zero on Thursday morning but it is a book dorky thing I like to do so whatever. 😛

We sat out the chairs and then we ran (yes ran!) to sit in Wendy’s vehicle sipping coffee, catching up, and enjoying the heated seats. 😀 It was about 7:00 am when the next car pulled into the parking lot – a guy who is always at the sale and I know as Tom showed up in full “ready to sit outside in 8 below zero weather gear”. Wendy groaned “oh no, now we have to go sit in those chairs to hold our place in line!” I told her, “No, wait – I know this guy, let me talk to him.” So out into the FREEZING air I went to talk with Tom. Once he heard my wheezy voice (yup, still battling that sinus infection) he said he would hold our spots and I scurried back to the car ever grateful. Not only did Tom hold our spots… but he gave numbers to those who came after him so they too could go back to their cars and stay warm too.

At about 30 minutes before “GO TIME!” Wendy and I went to stand in line and chat it up with the other books lovers (really one of my favorite things to do at the sales). Everyone, despite the cold, was in such good spirits.

The awesome Library then let us form our line inside due to the cold (I can’t remember exactly but I think someone said it was the coldest day in March in like 60 years…. I believe it!) SO inside this jolly little crew went, and at that time – thanks to Tom’s numbers, we knew we had 48 people in the line.

At 9 am the doors opened to the sale and in we went. I had to get to work and I did not feel well enough to get down and crawl through boxes like I usually do but at 50 cents a book I still spent $20. Over the next two days of working the sale I would spend another $16. (Do not judge…. 😛 )

So – on to the books…. Here is what I brought home:

and then a few special ones –

Two old Nancy Drews (I collect her) and yes, I do own The Help…. but, (and this is a book geek thing)…. not with this cover. 😛

Oh come on, have you not ever bought a good book just to own it in with a different cover? No? Just me? Too much? 😛

So that is where I have been and what I have been doing. I feel wiped out today but not as tired as I was yesterday. Yesterday was the $2 a bag of books sale and it was soooooo busy and by the time we closed up I was merely fumes of my former self. BUT – I have to tell you, what a blast and what a fun group of volunteers I spent time with this week. 😀

SO in honor of the book sale, put below in the comments one of the books that you see here that you would like (*not including the last picture). On Tuesday I will use random.org to choose a winner and I will send you that book.

Have a great start to your day everyone – I am off to get ready for church and then think I will lay low most of today re-energizing to start another busy week tomorrow. 😀

March With Me by Rosalie T. Turner

Published on March 21, 2013March 21, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)5 Comments

April 1963. Birmingham Alabama. Letitia lives her young life with a family who loves her. She enjoys the freedom of youth and loves to embark on adventures with her brother. Her family shares a tight bond.

Martha Ann lives with her family as well and dreams of the future, pretty dresses and music feel her thoughts. Martha Ann’s father is often angry and she can hear him from her room when he yells at her mom. This unsettles Martha Ann’s sense of comfort in her own home, causing an almost always existing tension.

Both girls live in Birmingham. They do not travel in the same circles and they do not know each other. Letitia in black and Martha Ann is white.

As the story unfolds both girls witness the civil rights movement through very different eyes. From the bombing of the Baptist Church, the assassination of Martin Luther King, and of course, the Children’s March, where briefly the girls will meet. Letitia feels the pressures pouring down around her and her family friends of color. A tension builds around her of the unjustness of it all. Martha Ann witnesses what is happening as an outsider looking in, but can not help but begin to understand what prejudice is and how it is a part of her very life.

The events of 1963 affect the girls in different ways. As the two girls grow and mature their paths will cross again in more ways than one.

In a way, as I closed this book two words seemed to hang in the air. Haunting and powerful. Haunting, because the images of what happened during that time period seem to be forever etched within me, although I did not live during the time. Powerful, because Rosalie takes this hard subject and softens it, making it personal and approachable, about two young girls who lived during a time that should not be forgotten or its importance lessened with time.

Written for a younger audience to understand, March With Me shares a powerful fictional story based on historical truths. The truth of the children’s march for me is one that pulls at my heart and takes my breath away. To me, this is a story based on acts that while I was not alive during the time of the march, I am well aware of it.

Rosalie Turner uses two young protagonists, one white, one black, to tell what happened during that time. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at this event from the two cultures, and found that a smart way to write this book. It is so easy to think of it as one-sided, Rosalie makes us go beyond the common thinking.

There are lessons for all of us here. For those who lived it, whose who remember it, and even for people who like me who were not around at the time, but have learned about the civil rights movement and the children’s march. This is a story everyone should read and really think about. As in most things in life, it really isn’t all black and white.

The First Warm Evening Of The Year by Jamie M Saul

Published on March 19, 2013March 19, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)9 Comments

Occasionally a book comes along that you wish with all your heart you could leap within it’s pages and walk along it’s streets and hang out with the new friends who hold court within. The First Warm Evening Of The Year is such a book.

~Sheila

Geoffrey Tremont has a pretty sweet life. He works hard and lives fairly well in his New York home and seeing the occasional woman he has his eye on but with no deep commitment and that is the way he likes it.

Then one day a blast from the past lands at his doorstep. A College friend, Laura, who he has not seen in twenty years has passed away from cancer and has named him executor of her estate. Bewildered, and grieved for the friendship he once had, Geoffrey packs his bags to go to Laura’s home in Shady Grove planning to get things in order and then head back home. Then Geoffrey meets Marion, a friend of Laura’s who is reserved and mourning the loss of her husband. Oddly, Geoffrey is drawn to this quiet woman and finds himself wondering if there could be any future with her.

It’s kind of funny as I am normally inclined to prefer books that move along at a nice clip, keeping me engaged and turning pages. The First Warm Evening Of The Year does not fall into that category. Slowly you are taken through a calmly paced adventure of nor peaks and valleys but more level terrain and for whatever reason, it worked for me.

Geoffrey is the guy in the fast lane at the beginning of the book who finds that Shady Grove has more appeal than he would have ever thought. I think I may have liked him for that reason. As a person who tends to love in the fast lane, I occasionally dream of living in the woods growing my own food and avoiding all outside world communications. It’s true… sometimes the lure to slow down and shut out the outside noise is great…

I digress.

For whatever reason, this book spoke to me, Geoffrey is a protagonist I enjoyed watching change, told mainly from his perspective it was interesting to see things through this 40 something bachelors eyes.

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for allowing me a trip to Shady Grove where I too could slow down and bask in someone elses world for awhile.

Morning Meanderings… The Post Where I Am Sick… Oh And I Cry.

Published on March 19, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)13 Comments

Hi! See this picture of me here where I look whimsical, witty, coffee in hard, a glow to my cheeks?

Yeah…

That’s not me today.

Today, I am in the recliner covered in a blanket, surrounded by assorted states of Kleenex, coughing like I really do not need two lungs, and hair that looks like something out of a bad 80’s movie. Yup, that about sums it up.

I am sick.

I guess it was inevitable. All winter long people around me have been taken out for days, weeks even, with some nasty flu bug that does not let go. I pride myself on the fact that I rarely get sick. I snub the yearly flu shot and walk around rarely with a coat… then Friday I started going down hill. While driving to the cities I felt a little tingly (know what I mean?) Saturday morning I woke up with a fever and a cough and a voice that I call “Grover” from Sesame Street.

I blame all this crappy snow and 15 below weather.

Sunday I was up and down, Monday I worked and then faded to the point of cancelling my Monday work out and now I am home here having called in to work for the morning and hoping I can pull myself together by noon so I can go to work for a couple of hours and then run a couple of errands.

At this moment… that idea sounds like a fictional tale.

In other news, I was reading the Shelf Awareness email this morning and read about Lisa Lynch, blogger at Alright Tit. Lisa created the blog after discovering she had breast cancer and her posts reflect an upbeat, and funny look at what she was going through. Always light-hearted, I believe she spoke to other women who also have suffered/are suffering from breast cancer. Her husband and good friend write the current post you see there today letting us know that Lisa lost her fight on March 11th.

Very sad, and did not help my Kleenex shortage over here.

So that is my post. I need to get well. This is a busy week with the Spring Library sale starting on Thursday and I will be helping out after work on Thursday through Saturday. Its going to be fun – and I need to get well. 😀

I have a review to write now and then I think I will relax into my Russian Tea a friend sent over last night saying this was their family “stay healthy” secret. I really should bathe in it.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on March 17, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)31 Comments

Under the new and hopefully improved 2013 guidelines, the winner each week will receive a $5 Amazon gift card. This past weeks winner is:

Tanya at Mom’s Small Victories!!!!

Well I was pretty much absent this week. I wasn’t planning on being absent but working hard and playing hard usually means something has to give and unfortunately this past week it was this space here. Bookclub was last Tuesday, Wednesday I was working out with friends, Thursday was wine and horduerves with my cousins, and I was gone over the weekend doing a 7k In the cities and I took my laptop with me but had little time to be on it. Hope fully this upcoming week will be a better turn out. Here is what I did manage to post this week:

The Tale Of Lucia Grandi by Susan Speranza

BIG News from here!

Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli (Bookies Review!)

That’s all 😀 This week I am at the Pink concert Tuesday evening (I know.. I know.. so mature of me 😛 ) and then I am helping at the Library book sale Thursday – Saturday so I am going to hope to get in a little reading:

I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.
So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives. In this ambitious debut novel, fact and fiction blend together brilliantly. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America’s greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Cheney’s profound influence on Wright. Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan’s Mamah is a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world. Mamah’s is an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leading inexorably ultimately lead to this novel’s stunning conclusion.

Women-to-women relationships in the workplace are . . . complicated. When they’re good, they’re great. But when they’re bad, they can ruin your day, your week—even your year.

Packed with proven advice from two of today’s leading experts in workplace relationships, this one-of-a-kind guide gives women the tools they need to navigate difficult situations unique to women-to-women relationships—whether with a boss, a colleague, a client, or an employee.

Have you dealt with a woman in the workplace who:

“Accidentally” excludes you from important meetings?

Seems intent on taking you down professionally?

Gossips about you with other coworkers?

Makes you look bad by missing deadlines?

Forms a “pack” of mean girls to make your life miserable?

Mean Girls at Work isn’t just about surviving difficult situations. It’s about transforming a toxic relationship into one that benefits and supports both of you.

This book is also for women who engage in mean behavior . . . but don’t know it. After all, who hasn’t gossiped about a female coworker? Who hasn’t rolled her eyes in the presence of a woman she doesn’t like? Who hasn’t scanned another woman head to toe—which is just a nonverbal way of saying, “You’ve just been judged”? The authors provide invaluable advice to the more subtle ways of being mean—even if they’re not intended.

For the record – I do not work with a mean girl… I work with an awesome girl…. I just think the book sounds interesting 😀

I want to read more than this, but I am going to keep it low this week. How about you – what are you reading and how is your reading this time of year? Add your post to the line below where it says click here.

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For those of you who review mainly Middle Grade (MG) and/or Young Adult (YA) reads, please also add your link to this meme as well:

MILKWEED By Jerry Spinelli

Published on March 15, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)4 Comments

Warsaw 1939, a young boy, no more than 8 years old wanders the streets alone, stealing food to survive and sleeping wherever he can feel safe for the night. He knows not who he is or where he came from, and when is asked what he is called honestly replies, “Stopthief” as that is all anyone has ever called him.

When he meets a group of boys who are much like him, they hie our at night in a bombed out barber shop, stealing food by day. People ask him, “Are you a Jew? A Gypsy? A filthy son of Abraham?” He eventually is given a name by the boys he hangs out with, “Misha”. He likes it and the story they gave him as well about his family. The boys watch out for the “Jackboots.” the Nazi’s who come to town to gather up the Jews, and destroy any happiness. Misha would like to be a Jackboot with their shiny boots and big tanks. When he grows up, that’s what he wants to be.

Misha makes a friend with a little girl in town names Janina. She is 6 years old and has lovely things and Misha enjoys visiting her. When Janina and her family are forced to move into the newly created ghetto, Misha thinks it is a game and goes along. When a wall is built high around the ghetto so no one can get out, Misha finds a hole in the wall that he is the only one small enough to use, and he goes out and steels food as he pleases and brings it back in to Janina and her family. But times are changing and the bread shelves are empty, and the ladies with the fox fur who used to be easy to rob with their large boxes of sweets are no longer able to be found.

As Misha leans more about his surroundings and what is really happening, he no longer wishes to be a Jackboot. Not at all.

We chose this book for our Bookies book club read for March. Our plan was to choose a YA book to read as a group. This is the book that was nominated and I found myself thinking this is not what I was considering for YA. Yet, having never read Spinelli before I had no idea what an experience I was in for.

MILKWEED is YA like Book Thief is YA. They are written with a younger reader in mind, yet they are written on important and powerful topics. There is no paranormal activity, no witches or werewolves, or vampires in MILKWEED. Instead, there is young, dirty boy.

MILKWEED is a young orphaned boys view of the Holocaust and the innocence of not knowing what is happening, and never really fully understanding until many years later the full impact of what he had been through. Living in a world where you were shot at, called “filthy pig” and seen friends die, was the only world Misha knew.

Even as I type this I am still in awe of the power of this little book. AT 208 pages, you do not need a lot of time to read it, but I do recommend that you do read it. I will definitely be looking for more of Spinelli.

Bookies Thoughts:

The Bookies had a good discussion over this book. It definitely left us with quite a bit of things to think about as the book focused around the Holocaust, Jewish people, hunger, and the crippling effects of having no hope. For all of us, this was our first Spinelli (speaking for myself, it will not be my last).

We discussed the value of a Holocaust book being written and marketed to 5th – 9th grade. We appreciated the value of a book to this age group on this topic but felt for the younger end they would need a follow-up with a parent to have questions answered as it does not go into much about the reason for the Holocaust or explain much about why people died. Of course this same line of discussion led to the wondering if a generation that has grown up surrounded by violence on tv, at the movies, and in video games would get the book and understand this was reality.

Overall the Bookies gave it an average rating. Some found the ending to be not to their liking. And of course, we had food… and lots of choices from the book as in the beginning Misha and the boys he hung around with stole from stores, gardens, and people’s homes, and food was plentiful.

Morning Meanderings…. 7K Eve and Bring Your Own Cheese

Published on March 15, 2013March 15, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)6 Comments

Good morning. 😀 As I look out my window starting at yet more.. yes, you guessed it.. SNOW coming done, I think of my relocation plan…

definitely somewhere year around sunny where bike riding is the norm, and book lovers are seen everywhere from park benches to the beach. *sigh*

A girl can dream….

In my reality, tomorrow in ST Paul I am running my first 7K of the year (yes yes… I know it is snowing….) and as odd as this probably sounds, I am looking forward to it. It should be fun, it will definitely be picture worthy. 😛

Tonight after work I will head to the cities to stay with friends who are also running. Then tomorrow afternoon we will be going to other friends home to enjoy a St Patty’s day get together where we are to BYOC… (Bring Your Own Cheese). LOL…. apparently along with great food, they are going to have a cheese bar. I do not know what a cheese bar is, but I like saying it, and I like the visual of it. being a lover of almost all things cheese, I am in on that deal.

I will be listening to audio during my travels but other than that reading has been at a real minimum this week. It seems like I have filled up every spare moment I have with errands, working out, and hanging with friends (book club was Tuesday, cousins get together was last night. ) Anyhoo.. it is all good.

Laptop will be making the trek with me this weekend so I will be around and hopefully will be posting some long due book reviews. 😀