Read Any Good Books Lately?

I love to read!  In elementary school, I would have several chapter books going at once.  In my adult life, I tend to go in spurts, because reading can distract me from my real job of keeping my family fed and clothed.  I won’t read anything for quite a while and then when I can’t stand it any longer I head to the library and get a stack of books.

I’ve been in “on” mode lately, so I thought I ‘d share with you what I’ve been reading.

Christian fiction has been on my nightstand a lot.  Sometimes (as with any genre, I guess) that can be hit or miss. But none of the books I’ve read lately have been preachy, and they’ve all had good foundational stories.  By that I mean that the author told a good story that contained Christian elements; it didn’t feel like they created a subpar story to try to fit the Christian message they wanted to get across.

In the last couple of months I’ve read the first two books of the “Kinship and Courage” series by Jane Kirkpatrick.  It’s about a group of women who make the journey from the east to California during the time of the gold rush.  Honestly, it took me a while to get in to the first book.  The story was good, but the characters weren’t particularly likeable.  Even so, I did enjoy the book overall, and by the end and into the second book, I felt like I understood them better.  There’s one more book in the series that I’ll read after a while.  I’ve learned my lesson about reading a whole series one right after the other (read about that here)!

 

Another new-to-me Christian author is Robin Lee Hatcher.  I’ve recently read The Perfect Life and Return to Me.  I enjoyed both of these books, particularly the former, although in both cases it did kind of feel like the story was full of conflict that resolved a little too easily and quickly at the end.  Also, I didn’t realize until now that Return to Me is the second book in a series.  I didn’t feel like I was missing out on any vital information, though.

 

 

On the non-Christian chick-lit side, The Pregnancy Test by Erin McCarthy was a fun read, but I must warn you that there were a couple very graphic and pages-long s*x scenes, which I felt could have been toned down quite a bit without doing any damage to the story.

I’m currently reading Practically Perfect by Katie Fforde (does anybody else want to pronounce that fuh-ford, or just me?).  I’m only a few chapters in, but so far so good.  Plus, it’s about a young woman who is rehabbing an English cottage to flip it for a profit, so it’s got a kind of HGTV thing going on too.

 

What’s been on your nightstand recently?