Hello hello my lovely fellow readers! It’s been a while but I’m happy to be back to my blog and content.
So this is a post that I have made similar ones of in the past. Basically a quick overview of the books received in this month’s Book of the Month selection. If you are not familiar, Book of the Month (BOTM) is a monthly book subscription service where you earn 1 credit towards a book and each additional book (up to 2) is only $9.99 – hardcovers too!!! If you’re interested in checking it out click HERE (referral link) and let me know how you like it 🙂
As with my last posts, I usually post the book dustcover’s synopsis of the book to give you a quick overview and will later post my own personal reviews once I’ve read them. I am a little behind in my readings…I’m still on my December books lol.
My BOTM selection was The Beauty in Breaking by Michele Harper. With all that’s been going on with healthcare workers being on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic (and I’ve been binge watching Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix recently), when I saw this book about a memoir of a doctor I immediately chose it as my selection.
“Michele Harper is an African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Brought up in Washington, DC, in a complicated family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. They stayed together through medical school until just before she was to join the staff of a hospital in Philadelphia when he told her he couldn’t move with her. Her marriage at an end, Harper began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman.
In the ensuing years, as she learned to become an effective ER physician, bringing insight and empathy to every patient encounter, Harper came to understand that each of us is broken – physically, emotionally, psychically. How we recognize those breaks, how we try to mend them, and where we go from there are all crucial parts of the healing process.
The Beauty in Breaking is the poignant true story of Harper’s journey toward self-healing. Each of the patients she writes about teaches her something important about recuperation and recovery: How to let go of fear even when the future is murky. How to tell the truth when it’s simpler to overlook it. How to understand that compassion isn’t the same as justice. As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats while they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past while we draw support from the present. Through this work of deep healing, our connection as human beings become clear. It is from this awareness that we can heal one another and uplift society. In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along the precious, necessary lessons she has learned as a daughter, a woman, and a physician.”
I recently became a BFF member with BOTM (in June), which is the level you reach after getting 12 boxes, and one of the perks of being a BFF is a free book in your birthday month. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia both looked and sounded interesting with a gothic suspense vibe so I chose it as my birthday book selection. Silvia Moreno-Garcia is also the author of critically acclaimed Gods of Jade and Shadow which is a book I’ve had on my to buy/read list for some time and will eventually include it as one of my BOTM selection in the future.
“After receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin, Noemi Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside, unsure what she will find.
Noemi is an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, more suited to cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough, smart, and not afraid: not of her cousin’s new English husband, a stranger who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems fascinated by Noemi; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.
Noemi’s only ally in this inhospitable place is the family’s youngest son. But he too may be hiding something dark. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place, as Noemi discovers when she begins to unearth stories of violence and madness.
Mesmerized by this terrifying yet seductive world, Noemi may soon find it impossible to save her cousin – or even escape this enigmatic house.”
I’m not much of a scary story person, but I did enjoy my last book by Alex North which was The Whisper Man (also a BOTM selection). So it was no surprise for me to choose The Shadows as my second add-on book for July, and I’m looking forward to a terrifyingly good read.
“You knew a teenager like Charlie Crabtree. A dark imagination, a sinister smile – always on the outside of the group. Some part of you suspected he might be capable of doing something awful. Twenty-five years ago, Crabtree did just that, committing a murder so shocking that it’s attracted that strange kind of infamy that only exists on the darkest corners of the internet – and has inspired more than one copycat.
Paul Adams remembers the case all too well. Crabtree – and his victim – were Paul’s friends. Paul has slowly put his life back together. But now his mother, old and suffering from dementia, has taken a turn for the worse. Though every inch of him resists, it is time to come home.
It’s not long before things start to go wrong. Paul learns that Detective Amanda Beck is investigating another copycat that has struck in the nearby town of Featherbank. His mother is distressed, insistent that there’s something in the house. And someone is following him. Which reminds him of the most unsettling thing about that awful day twenty-five years ago.
It wasn’t just the murder.
It was the fact that afterward, Charlie Crabtree was never seen again…”
So there you have it! What did you think of my selection for this month? Are any of those books on your to-read list for this summer? If you’ve already read them I would love to hear your thoughts (no spoilers though!).
See you in the next post!
~XO~
Dose of Dalia 