WWW Wednesday | Check Out What I’m Reading This Week

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Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

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Currently Reading

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Looking through this post, I realize that this group of reads doesn’t look typical of me. I think having these kind of weeks refreshes my reading palette, though. How about you? Do you like the change things up every once in a while?

I am posting an extract of this book on September 1st as part of a Harlequin Trade blog tour, but I am going to try to do a quick read today, so that I can at least include a mini-review with it. It looks like a wonderful book that is supposed to have a large suspense component. If you have followed me for any amount of time, you know how much I love suspense! I just wish I had the time to do it justice with my normal slower reading and longer review.

Genre: #OwnVoices / Women’s Lit

Book Description

• Print Length: 384 pages
• Publisher: Park Row
• Publication Date: September 1, 2020

Book Summary

Suspenseful and deeply felt.” —Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists

“Kim is a brilliant new voice in American fiction.” —Alexander Chee, bestselling author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

“Fans of Amy Tan and Kristin Hannah will love Kim’s brilliant debut.”—Booklist, starred review

A profoundly moving and unconventional mother-daughter saga, The Last Story of Mina Lee illustrates the devastating realities of being an immigrant in America.

Margot Lee’s mother, Mina, isn’t returning her calls. It’s a mystery to twenty-six-year-old Margot, until she visits her childhood apartment in Koreatown, LA, and finds that her mother has suspiciously died. The discovery sends Margot digging through the past, unraveling the tenuous invisible strings that held together her single mother’s life as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she truly knew about her mother.

Interwoven with Margot’s present-day search is Mina’s story of her first year in Los Angeles as she navigates the promises and perils of the American myth of reinvention. While she’s barely earning a living by stocking shelves at a Korean grocery store, the last thing Mina ever expects is to fall in love. But that love story sets in motion a series of events that have consequences for years to come, leading up to the truth of what happened the night of her death.

Told through the intimate lens of a mother and daughter who have struggled all their lives to understand each other, The Last Story of Mina Lee is a powerful and exquisitely woven debut novel that explores identity, family, secrets, and what it truly means to belong.

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Just Finished

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Another last minute Harlequin Trade blog tour book, this one is dark and intense with the layers of unavoidable truths that are common to the genre. This story is set in a world where all of a sudden winter did not end. When the book opens, it is the second summer in a row that is still winter. Why? The characters figure it is a direct consequence to how much humans have used and abused the planet over the years, though the story never gives any official scientific explanation. The story has plenty of action and suspense and I could see it as a great book club read with plenty to reflect on and discuss.

Genre: Dystopian Thriller

Book Details

• Print Length: 320 pages
• Publisher: MIRA books
• Publication Date: September 1, 2020

Book Summary

In an endless winter, she carries seeds of hope

Wylodine comes from a world of paranoia and poverty—her family grows marijuana illegally, and life has always been a battle. Now she’s been left behind to tend the crop alone. Then spring doesn’t return for the second year in a row, bringing unprecedented extreme winter.

With grow lights stashed in her truck and a pouch of precious seeds, she begins a journey, determined to start over away from Appalachian Ohio. But the icy roads and strangers hidden in the hills are treacherous. After a harrowing encounter with a violent cult, Wylodine and her small group of exiles become a target for its volatile leader. Because she has the most valuable skill in the climate chaos: she can make things grow.

With the gripping suspense of The Road and the lyricism of Station Eleven, Stine’s vision is of a changing world where an unexpected hero searches for a place hope might take root.

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Since my last WWW post, I also finished Under a Siena Sun by T.A. Williams. This is a light and fun read in the most beautiful Italian setting. My review of this book will be part of a Rachel Random Resources blog tour. It was presented to me as a RomCom and the romance part of it is more on the level you normally find in a romantic comedy – not steamy or sappy, just PG – but the story wasn’t really funny. Instead of funny, it had a more serious theme of the importance of helping others, as the main character had been providing medical care in a war-torn country in Africa and now is trying to settle into a more “normal” lifestyle. Because of this, I would call it a Women’s Fiction story. But whatever the genre, it is still a nice light read perfect for if you want to read something but you don’t feel like getting into anything intense or long.

Genre: Women’s Lit / Romance-ish

Book Details

• Print Length: 212 pages
• Publisher: Canelo Escape
• Publication Date: August 27, 2020

Book Summary

Lucy needed a change of scene. She didn’t expect the change of a lifetime.

Doctors Without Borders has been Lucy Young’s life for the past four years. After an emergency extraction from a conflict zone, she’s making a change from saving lives under gunfire to practising medicine in safe, serene Siena.

Now treating obscenely wealthy patients at a private clinic, she’s never felt less comfortable. She’s used to helping those in dire need – not those in need of a nip and tuck. Her turmoil grows when she encounters injured tennis star David Lorenzo, whose potent smiles make Lucy forget her aversion to the rich.

She’s soon falling for the sportsman but feels like she’s losing herself in this world of excess. All she’s ever wanted was to help the underprivileged and be a positive change in the world, so can her future lie in Siena at the clinic – with David?

This sunny romance is the perfect summer escape for fans of Lucy Coleman and Alex Brown.

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Reading Next

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Strictly Come Dating is another Rachel’s Random Resources blog tour book. It’s the last of three romcoms in a series written by Kathryn Freeman. I always look forward to romantic comedies and have really enjoyed finding those gems within the genre. Fingers-crossed that this one is a gem.

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Book Details

• Print Length: 379 pages
• Publisher: One More Chapter HC
• Publication Date: August 15, 2020

Book Summary

Fun, feel-good and a must read for fans of Strictly Come Dancing!

Saturday nights are strictly for dancing… 

As the glitter ball shimmers and sequins flash, forty-year-old Maggie remembers the pull of the dancefloor.  But now, as a newly divorced mum of two, Maggie’s certain her dancing days are over.  Or are they…?

Encouraged by her friends, Maggie dusts off her silver stilettoes and enrols for dancing classes, all she needs now is the perfect partner.

Enter Seb.  Young, carefree and hot as hell, Seb is definitely a perfect 10!  Even though everything about him is outrageously inappropriate! But as Seb sweeps her across the dancefloor every week, Maggie begins to see a new side to him; kind, caring, funny, strong. 

And Maggie realises that he’s the only one she’d like to foxtrot with…perhaps even forever?

Tell me about the book(s) you are reading this week in the comments.