Despite having a new job and Thanksgiving preparations take up more of my time in November, I was still able to read 11 books. I found some good ones that month! Plus, one of my favorite authors, Robin Jones Gunn, released a new book: the first book in her Christy and Todd: The Baby Years series. I loved the Christy Miller series growing up, and I’m so glad she’s still writing Christy and Todd’s story!
But I’m getting ahead of myself! Here are all the books I read in November:
Through Waters Deep and Anchor in the Storm by Sarah Sundin (Books 1 and 2 in the Waves of Freedom series) // This is the second World War 2 series I’ve read by Sarah Sundin, and her most recent one. In the first book, Through Waters Deep, Mary Stirling works at the Boston Navy Yard. It’s there that she meets Ensign Jim Avery, and they are soon drawn into an investigation of a saboteur on Jim’s destroyer, the USS Atwood. In Anchor in the Storm, Jim’s sister and Mary’s roommate, Lillian Avery, is struggling to find her place as a female pharmacist. When Jim’s best friend, Ensign Archer Vandenberg, notices his men struggling with nerves and drowsiness, he enlists Lillian’s help to uncover a connection to the large sedative prescriptions she’s been filling. This series has the same rich WW2 details and sweet romance as her previous series, with the added bonus of mystery and intrigue. It’s the perfect blend of crime-solving, romance and history. I can’t wait for the third book to come out in March!
Where Treetops Glisten by Cara Putman, Sarah Sundin, and Tricia Goyer // I decided to buy this book because I’ve been reading everything I can find by Sarah Sundin. This is a collection of three Christmas novellas, following three siblings through WW2. I love that the stories all tie in to a Christmas song from the time period (White Christmas, I’ll Be Home for Christmas, and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas). Three wonderful stories, perfect to read during the Christmas season!
Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple // This isn’t the kind of book I normally gravitate to, but I’ve heard good things about it from several people and found it on sale at Books a Million. The story format is a little hard to get used to at first; it’s written as a collection of e-mails, notes, and correspondence that we later find out was pieced together by Bernadette’s daughter. It turned out to be a story that held my attention, and was pretty funny and eccentric. A story about a somewhat dysfunctional family, a mom who has lost part of her identity and is struggling with anxiety and fitting in with the social hierarchy of her daughter’s school, and a daughter who loves her mom no matter what–it’s somehow relatable, even though parts of the story can seem far-fetched. Overall, I enjoyed it.
Resolutions, The Plan, and Taking Chances by Jenn Faulk // I always enjoy Jenn Faulk’s books! Whenever I’m in between books, I like to find one of hers I haven’t read yet and download it to my Kindle for a fun read. These three were no exception; I loved reading about new characters and seeing how they tied into the storylines of her other books I’ve read. I can always count on Jenn Faulk for a fun, lighthearted romance with characters I wish I could be friends with and a spiritual message that never seems forced or fake.
A December Bride by Denise Hunter (A Year of Weddings Novella Book 1) // I decided to re-read this book after watching the Hallmark movie based on it, to see how they compared. Even though they had some differences, I really enjoyed both the movie and the book! It’s a story of a broken engagement, then a fake engagement that (spoiler alert!) turns real. It’s a novella, so it’s a quick read, but it’s a really touching story.
Stone and Spark & Stone and Snow by Sibella Giorello (Books 1 and 2 in the Raleigh Harmon Mysteries series) // I’ve talked before about how much I love the Raleigh Harmon series. When I finished the 6 books in that series, I found out that Sibella Giorello had written a three-book series about the fifteen-year-old Raleigh. I read the first two books in November and loved them! This series is an inside look at the events that first interested Raleigh in geology and solving crimes, and the people in her life that made her who she is. Her character and her skills were really refined by fire, between helping her best friend deal with tragedy and struggling to relate to her mentally ill mother and her father as he tries to help her mother, along with the usual high school drama. It’s really interesting to get a look at her life while her father was alive and before she became an accomplished FBI agent and professional geologist.
Sandy Toes by Robin Jones Gunn (Book One in the Christy and Todd: The Baby Years series) // The Christy Miller series by Robin Jones Gunn was one of my favorites when I was a teenager, and I’m so glad that her story has continued through The College Years series, The Married Years series, and now the first in a three-book The Baby Years series. I love reading about Christy and Todd as they grow up, get married, and start a family. They’re such relatable characters, and I wish we could be friends in real life and that I could babysit their kids 😉 even though they only have one as of this book. It’s fun to follow along and see them learn and grow through each stage of life, and this book showed what I imagine to be a very accurate portrayal of the struggles a young couple faces as Todd tries to find his place in a career and as they prepare for a baby. I can’t wait for the next two books in the series!
Have you read any of these books? What have you been reading lately?