Happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! I had a great Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday with my best friend, hitting up Bel Canto Books for some great new reads and a great lunch out. We even ran into some booksta friends on the way to the bookstore! For today’s reading check in, it seemed a fantastic day to pull out my Bel Canto Books mug for my much needed caffeine fix!
I also participated a bit in the Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon on Saturday, though far short of a full 24-hours. Still, I managed to start and finish BEFORE SHE KNEW HIM by Peter Swanson and get a good way into VENGEFUL by V.E. Schwab.
VENGEFUL is the second book in Schwab’s Villains duology and I’ve been buddy reading them with a friend. I really enjoyed the first book, but wasn’t sure where the next book in the series would go. Much as with the first book the story proceeds in multiple timelines, jumping back and forth between a few significant timelines with a few side trips into other points of time for background information. This book also expands the POVs we’re receive a bit with some old favorites and some new characters introduced.
This series is set in a world of people with super abilities who live complicated and morally gray lives (though the shades of gray are pretty varied in some cases). I bounced a bit around between audio and print on this one and with the shifts in perspective and time I found the print to work a bit better, but regardless I am flying through this one!
I didn’t get in as much reading as I had initially planned this weekend, but I do have a few other reads in progress.
I am halfway into THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN CUBA by Chanel Cleeton (out 5/4/21 from Berkley) which is following three young women in history. It’s exploring the world of journalism with a young aspiring reporter and the political turmoil of Cuba with a young woman falsely accused and imprisoned and a young courier working for revolutionaries. I was immediately sucked into the story!
I am still reading THE THORN BIRDS by Colleen McCullough for our April/May Classics Buddy Read and I’m looking forward to picking it back up for our next discussion in May!
I have a few other buddy reads to get to before the month ends, but I think I’ll be able to fit it all in! What are you finishing up this week for April?
DG Reads 