Happy 9th Birthday, Traveling With T!

 

Today is my blog’s 9th birthday. I’ve been blogging for 9 years. 9 YEARS. What started off as a little hobby to keep me off of Sephora and to expand my love of talking books on Twitter (and to get away from a limit of 140 characters- and yes, folks, I’ve been on Twitter since the 140 days- you have no idea how much freedom raising the character limit to 280 was 😉  has really morphed into something so much more. Making friends with other book lovers. Talking with authors. Getting books from publishers. Reading and reviewing books. Expanding my love of reading into other genres. Listening to audiobooks (shout out to Julia Whelan- who is the best audiobook narrator ever!) Continue reading →

The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis

Photo Credit: Dutton

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

The Lions of Fifth Avenue

Summary: In nationally bestselling author Fiona Davis’s latest historical novel, a series of book thefts roils the iconic New York Public Library, leaving two generations of strong-willed women to pick up the pieces.

It’s 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn’t ask for more out of life–her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open. As her studies take her all over the city, she finds herself drawn to Greenwich Village’s new bohemia, where she discovers the Heterodoxy Club–a radical, all-female group in which women are encouraged to loudly share their opinions on suffrage, birth control, and women’s rights. Soon, Laura finds herself questioning her traditional role as wife and mother. But when valuable books are stolen back at the library, threatening the home and institution she loves, she’s forced to confront her shifting priorities head on . . . and may just lose everything in the process.

Eighty years later, in 1993, Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother, the famous essayist Laura Lyons, especially after she’s wrangled her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But the job quickly becomes a nightmare when rare manuscripts, notes, and books for the exhibit Sadie’s running begin disappearing from the library’s famous Berg Collection. Determined to save both the exhibit and her career, the typically risk-adverse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However, things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage–truths that shed new light on the biggest tragedy in the library’s history. Continue reading →

Literary Friday ya’ll…

 

Well it’s another Friday and this week Mississippi had it’s first snap of really cold weather. Morning time when I normally would be walking outside was like 25 degrees and that is a big ole NOPE to walk in. So I did some more elliptical trainer this week and even dusted off the old treadmill for a walk (but I much prefer to walk outside than on the treadmill.)

Still have not put the Christmas tree yet, but that will be happening soon. I’ve been digging around on my Kindle for books to read this week and found some forgotten e-ARC’s of All The Broken People by Leah Konen and Little Threats by Emily Schultz. Both published earlier in 2020. I’ve finished All The Broken People (it was ok- mainly 3 stars) and about halfway finished with Little Threats (which is a bit hard for me to classify- the main crime in the book took place when the main character was 16- but the book is also focusing on the aftermath of her crime after she gets out of jail at 31. There is def a true crime feel to it as well.)

What have you been reading this week? Continue reading →

Lowcountry Boughs of Holly by Susan M. Boyer

Photo Credit: Henery Press

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Lowcountry Boughs of Holly

Summary: It’s the most wonderful time of the year, but Private Investigator Liz Talbot is struggling to feel festive. She hasn’t seen her best friend, Colleen, in weeks and fears she may never see her again in this life. Meanwhile Nate, Liz’s husband and partner, is spending money like he prints it in the attic on a mysterious family Christmas celebration. Liz’s nerves are shot, and she hasn’t even decked a single hall. But there’s simply no time to fret.

On a morning beach run, Liz spots a wooden rowboat run aground with Santa inside. Did Old Saint Nick have too much eggnog at the boat parade? No indeedy—Santa’s been shot. And he’s none other than C.C. Bounetheau, patriarch of one of Charleston’s wealthiest families.

Liz and Nate already unwrapped quite a few family secrets while searching for the Bounetheau’s missing granddaughter last year—enough to make them swear to steer forever clear of the entire clan. But as Mr. Bounetheau’s body is found in Stella Maris, and Liz and Nate are the police chief’s on-call detectives, they’re on the case.

With no shortage of suspects, Liz and Nate dash to find a killer who may be working his or her way down a naughty list.

Spend Christmas in the Lowcountry with the Talbot family and their friends in Susan M. Boyer’s latest Southern charmer, Lowcountry Boughs of Holly. Tis the season for merry mayhem! Continue reading →

Behind Every Lie by Christina McDonald

Photo Credit: Gallery

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Behind Every Lie

Summary: From the author of The Night Olivia Fell—an “emotionally charged mystery” (Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author)—comes a thrilling new suspense novel about the insidious nature of family secrets…and their deadly potential.

If you can’t remember it, how do you prove you didn’t do it?

Eva Hansen wakes in the hospital after being struck by lightning and discovers her mother, Kat, has been murdered. Eva was found unconscious down the street. She can’t remember what happened but the police are highly suspicious of her.

Determined to clear her name, Eva heads from Seattle to London—Kat’s former home—for answers. But as she unravels her mother’s carefully held secrets, Eva soon realizes that someone doesn’t want her to know the truth. And with violent memories beginning to emerge, Eva doesn’t know who to trust. Least of all herself.

Told in alternating perspectives from Eva’s search for answers and Kat’s mysterious past, Christina McDonald has crafted another “complex, emotionally intense” (Publishers Weekly) domestic thriller. Behind Every Lie explores the complicated nature of mother-daughter relationships, family trauma, and the danger behind long-held secrets. Continue reading →

Literary Friday ya’ll…

 

Well I didn’t get around to Literary Friday last week because the nieces arrived on Thursday and basically my weekend basically consisted of these tweets.  Then my youngest niece got a round brush tangled to the extreme in her hair (like I thought I might have to cut her hair tangled). And then my oldest niece stayed at the house till Thanksgiving and proceeded to ask 1 million questions a day (tweet accurately displaying my reaction to all.those.questions.) So hey… if you aren’t following me on Twitter, maybe you should. My GIF game is strong 🙂 Continue reading →

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

Photo Credit: William Morrow

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

The Hunting Party

Summary: Everyone’s invited. Everyone’s a suspect.
All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.

During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.

They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.

Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.

The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps.

Now one of them is dead . . . and another of them did it.

Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close? Continue reading →

The Witness by Nora Roberts

Photo Credit: Brilliance Audio

Traveling With T purchased this book for her listening while walking time.

The Witness

Summary: Daughter of a controlling mother, Elizabeth finally let loose one night, drinking at a nightclub and allowing a strange man’s seductive Russian accent lure her to a house on Lake Shore Drive. The events that followed changed her life forever.

Twelve years later, the woman known as Abigail Lowery lives on the outskirts of a small town in the Ozarks. A freelance programmer, she designs sophisticated security systems — and supplements her own security with a fierce dog and an assortment of firearms. She keeps to herself, saying little, revealing nothing. But Abigail’s reserve only intrigues police chief Brooks Gleason. Her logical mind, her secretive nature, and her unromantic viewpoints leave him fascinated but frustrated. He suspects that Abigail needs protection from something — and that her elaborate defenses hide a story that must be revealed.

With a quirky, unforgettable heroine and a pulse-pounding plotline, Nora Roberts presents a riveting new read that cements her place as today’s most reliably entertaining thriller — and will leave people hungering for more. Continue reading →

In A Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

Photo Credit: Scout Press

Traveling With T purchased this for her own reading time.

In A Dark, Dark Wood

Summary: In a dark, dark wood

Nora hasn’t seen Clare for ten years. Not since Nora walked out of school one day and never went back.

There was a dark, dark house

Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen do arrives. Is this a chance for Nora to finally put her past behind her?

And in the dark, dark house there was a dark, dark room

But something goes wrong. Very wrong.

And in the dark, dark room….

Some things can’t stay secret for ever. Continue reading →

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

Photo Credit: Dutton

This book was gifted to Traveling With T by a dear friend.

Home Before Dark

Summary: What was it like? Living in that house.

Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a nonfiction book called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism.

Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father’s book. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father’s death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks to Maggie’s father. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.

In the latest thriller from New York Times bestseller Riley Sager, a woman returns to the house made famous by her father’s bestselling horror memoir. Is the place really haunted by evil forces, as her father claimed? Or are there more earthbound—and dangerous—secrets hidden within its walls? Continue reading →