WOW, I didn’t realize that it’s been so long since I wrote, but June is always a busy month, and I spent much of it reading Silver Birch contenders, so I guess I didn’t have much to tell you about. However, I wanted to catch up on the few adult books I’ve read or listened to since May.
I read a big epic novel that I pulled off of my bookshelf called The Latecomers by Helen Klein Ross. This multigenerational novel tells the sweeping saga of a young Irish immigrant coming to the US in 1908, the grief of giving a baby up for adoption, and the lasting effects of keeping family secrets hidden for generations. I usually stay away from multigenerational sagas because they’re too long and too difficult to follow, and I could say that this one was a bit of both, but it was also an amazing story expertly told, one that was written so credibly it could have been based on real events. If you enjoy historical, multigenerational novels set in the US documenting the Irish immigration experience as told from the points of view of various women, this could be the book for you!
And I listened to an audiobook that a colleague recommended, Every Summer After by Canadian author Carley Fortune, which was excellent! It was also not the type of book I usually read, a summer beach romance. But it was so very Canadian, set in Barrie’s Bay and Toronto, with various Canadian-isms described throughout, that I couldn’t help but love it. It was a coming-of-age story, and also a story of “regrets” and “what-ifs”, and asks readers to consider whether it’s ever too late to make things right and finally reach for the life you thought you should always have had. It was so good that I put another book by this author on hold at the library, one focusing on one of the main characters from Every Summer After but exploring his story more fully. Well, it arrived shortly after I finished this audiobook, and since it was the beginning of summer break, I had to read it. One Golden Summer is not a sequel, but it would be better to read them in order to get the fullest understanding of the relationships between Charlie, Sam and Percy, as well as Alice, the newest addition to the group. I can’t recommend these highly enough to readers who want some light romantic summer reading, even though these books have more depth of insight and character development than your standard “trashy beach read” (are we still allowed to use that phrase?!). I loved these two books, but I have to get back to the Silver Birch books sitting on my coffee table to get to the rest of the contenders before we make our final nomination list. *sigh*
That’s all for today. Stay cool, drink water, read books!
Bye for now… Julie
