Hello! Welcome to Thinking Out Loud Thursday where I talk about something on my mind and invite you to link up and do the same. It's the first Thursday of the month, so I'm thinking about the books I read last month. Here are my read for June ~
One of my favorite authors, Elin Hilderbrand, had a new book come out in June and I couldn't wait to read it! The Five-Star Weekend didn't disappoint. Here's the summary ~
Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’s perfect life—her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline—grow deeper.
So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend”—one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife—she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket. But the weekend doesn’t turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.
The husband of Hollis’s childhood friend Tatum arranges for Hollis’s first love, Jack Finigan, to spend time with them, stirring up old feelings. Meanwhile, Tatum is forced to play nice with abrasive and elitist Dru-Ann, Hollis’s best friend from UNC Chapel Hill. Dru-Ann’s career as a prominent Chicago sports agent is on the line after her comments about a client’s mental health issues are misconstrued online. Brooke, Hollis’s friend from their thirties, has just discovered that her husband is having an inappropriate relationship with a woman at work. Again! And then there’s Gigi, a stranger to everyone (including Hollis) who reached out to Hollis through her blog. Gigi embodies an unusual grace and, as it happens, has many secrets.
The Five-Star Weekend is a surprising and captivating story about friendship, love, and self-discovery set on Nantucket. It will be a weekend like no other.A
This book had me thinking about who I would invite if I had a Five-Star Weekend and reminiscing on friendships from all stages of my life. There were moments I laughed out loud and others where I caught myself letting a few tears fall down my cheeks.
I would definitely recommend this one! And it would be a great book to read on vacation.
This Timothy Egan book was our library book club book of the month. Honestly, I would never have picked this one up to read if I hadn't had to discuss it at the book club. If I had picked it up, I would have probably stopped reading not very far in. It's hard to read. Not that the words on the pages are complex, but the whole subject matter is hard. It made me disgusted to read how we as Americans treated other humans. I also realized that just like I'm a seasonal cook (you would never find me cooking chili in the summer), I'm also a seasonal reader. Summer is for fun, light books. This book is heavy. Not something I enjoy reading in the summer. To be fair, I learned a lot from this book and the ending was good. Here's the summary ~
The Roaring Twenties--the Jazz Age--has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson.
Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he’d become the Grand Dragon of the state and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows – their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman – Madge Oberholtzer – who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees.
A FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND marries a propulsive drama to a powerful and page-turning reckoning with one of the darkest threads in American history.
My last two reads for the month go hand in hand. I love reading series so I turned to Kindle Unlimited for something that looked interesting. What I found was Cecelia Scott's seven-book series on the Sweeney House. I devoured the first two books and am well into the third. They are quick, easy, and fun to read. Also, all seven are available on Kindle Unlimited! The Sweeney family has woven themselves into my heart and my guess is I'll have all seven books finished long before the end of summer!
The Sweeney House is a landmark inn on the shores of Cocoa Beach, built and owned by the same family for decades. After the unexpected passing of their beloved patriarch, Jay, this family must come together like never before. They may have lost their leader, but the Sweeneys are made of strong stuff. Together on the island paradise where they grew up, this family meets every challenge with hope, humor, and heart, bathed in sunshine and the unconditional love they learned from their father.
Cocoa Beach Cottage – book 1
Cocoa Beach Boardwalk – book 2
Cocoa Beach Reunion – book 3
Cocoa Beach Sunrise – book 4
Cocoa Beach Bakery – book 5
Cocoa Beach Cabana – book 6
Cocoa Beach Bride – book 7
Here's the summary of the first book - Cocoa Beach Cottage ~
Samantha Parker is picking up the pieces of her life—and a pen to sign divorce papers—after she finds out her husband has been cheating on her, and the other woman is expecting his child. While the idea of leaving town and starting over is appealing, Sam's only option is to head back to her childhood home of Cocoa Beach, Florida, to help her recently-widowed mother run their family inn. Can she go home and start her whole life over at forty-three?
Sam decides to spend the summer living in the beachfront cottage where she was raised, bringing her twenty-four year old daughter for moral support and laughter, and her teenage son, in the hopes that the change will help him heal, too.
Finding peace on the sunwashed island, Sam finally spreads her wings, gets her first real job, and reconnects with the siblings she’s kept distant for far too many years. She helps her daughter navigate a new romance, guides her mother through a widow’s grief, and supports her sister as she faces an unexpected challenge. But when the pain of the divorce becomes too much for her fragile son to handle, Sam wonders if she can ever really escape her past.
The second book was downloaded immediately upon finishing the first one! Here's the summary for Cocoa Beach Boardwalk ~
As Samantha Sweeney dives into the renovation of Sweeney House with her mother, she repairs more than the inn—she and Dottie have never been closer. Fueled by a newfound strength and independence, Sam is certain she’s up to the task of bringing her family's inn back to life, no matter what unexpected challenges they might encounter.
While Sam and Dottie are focused on the inn, the family around them is facing new tests and trials. Sam’s daughter, has a broken heart that needs mending, her sister is struggling with a daunting new addition to her family, and John, the eldest Sweeney, finds his perfect marriage as rocky as the shell-covered sands of Cocoa Beach.
Each branch of the Sweeney family tree is swaying, but their roots run deep. When the newest member of the family threatens to snap one of those branches in half, it will take everything they have to bend and not break.
Now it's your turn - what are you thinking out loud about today? Link up and share!
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