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Tomorrow is the day, and readers, we are SO ready!  Minimizing side conversations about  From Blood and Ash #1 by Jennifer Armentrout has been so challenging, but for you, we’ve done it!  If you’d like to be in the (virtual) room where it happens on August 26 at 7:30pm CST don’t forget to sign up here.  Do remember, we have only read the first book, and we don’t like spoilers!  

Ashley IN MEDIAS RES

• Ninja Selling: Subtle Skills. Big Results. By Kendall Larry
• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
• A Year of Positive Thinking: Daily Inspiration, Wisdom, and Courage by Cyndie Spiegel
• The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert by John M. Gottman and Nan Silver
• We Set the Dark on Fire (#1) by Tehlor Kay Mejia
• The Manual of Tennessee Real Estate 2020 Edition

Nikki IN MEDIAS RES

• When Less Becomes More: Making Space for Slow, Simple, and Good by Emily Ley (audio)
• We Set the Dark on Fire (#1) by Tehlor Kay Mejia
• Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by Sue Johnson
• Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes by Shauna Niequist
• Fire & Rescue Shifters: Complete Series Collection by Zoe Chant
• The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin

Ashley FIN

• The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1) by Pippa Grant
• The Power of Agency: The 7 Principles to Conquer Obstacles, Make Effective Decisions, and Create a Life on Your Own Terms by Paul Napper
• Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas
• Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by Sue Johnson
• From Blood and Ash #1 by Jennifer Armentrout
• Mantrum (The Winters Brothers #1) by Jacob Chance
• Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows #2) by Leigh Bardugo
• Shoulder Season by Christina Clancy 
• The Last Eligible Billionaire by Pippa Grant*
• The Bear’s Midlife Mate (Mountain Magic #1) by Haley Weir*
• The Pathfinder’s Journey: Key to Your Dream Life Through Real Estate Investing by Eric Vogel*

Nikki FIN

• Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren
• The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1) by Pippa Grant
• From Blood and Ash #1 by Jennifer Armentrout
• Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows #2) by Leigh Bardugo
• Mantrum (The Winters Brothers #1) by Jacob Chance
• Shoulder Season by Christina Clancy 
• The Lives of Saints by Leigh Bardugo
• The Last Eligible Billionaire by Pippa Grant
• A Bollywood Affair (Bollywood #1) by Sonali Dev

*Finished in July

Darling readers, I think I might be living my best reading life this year because every month, I look at this list and am so delighted with the multitudes I contain.  This month specifically has been an adventure.  Even the title that we refused to post about this month was entertaining because of the conversation we had about it and all the things we aren’t going to publicly say about someone’s hard work.  (That said, we are still in want of a quality romance novel by a male and welcome your suggestions.)  I read not one, but TWO book club titles this month, and finished both with days, yes, plural, to spare (and yes, I did have the date wrong on the one you’re not all invited to, so that helped, and I’m still taking the win).  

For the romance readers, if you enjoy a modern, open door romance, with lots of layers, and you enjoy snark and “hold my beer” energy that is very self aware (the author, not always the characters), you NEED to read Pippa Grant.  Get you a Kindle Unlimited subscription, read those bad boys in publication order (although we did start with Stud in the Stacks because the Facebook algorithms knew we needed the date auction to pull us in), and live your BEST LIFE!  I’m also delighted to share (without having discussed it with Ashley – you’re welcome darling), that we have ARCs of Grant’s next book, which is the follow up to The One Who Loves You so we’ll be reading and reviewing that at some point before it’s publication on December 13, 2022.  

The other book club book I read this month is Liturgy of the Ordinary and if you’re Christian I highly recommend this!  Tish Harrison Warren walks readers through the day and applies Biblical ideas to them, and helps enlighten readers about how sacred regular tasks can be if we only let them.  It’s not patronizing (because if I have to hear what a joy it is to clean a toilet, I will throw things), but it is considered.  My personal favorite was the chapter about rest and sabbath, titled “sleeping; sabbath, rest, and the work of God” and it was so encouraging towards routine and rest, and the why and how to support improvements in how we value, with our time, rest.  This is further supported by my audiobook of the month, When Less Becomes More: Making Space for Slow, Simple, and Good by Emily Ley.  Readers, we don’t need more hustle, and it won’t serve us well.  We need more calm, and more margin for the things that matter to us, and those things need to be reflected in our schedules, and how we actually spend our time and energy.  While some of these titles are a bit preachy at times, they include messages I need to hear, over and over again, until I more fully live into them.  I’m trying to start small (#iykyk #lazygeniusway) in making sustainable habit changes in my life, and welcome you to join me in making changes based on what matters to you.

What is a title that’s spoken peace into your life in some way?

~Nikki 

Darling Readers, I do not recommend doing a Reading Life Review for a month with a whole six days left in it. It’s very frustrating and my Enneagram 1 is showing, isn’t it? I greatly dislike discussing my reading life for an entire month when I will probably finish at least 3 more books in the next six days. I’m sure this is not the first time that I have said this and I am pretty positive it will not be the last. However, the books I will be finishing this month are unlikely to be very exciting for you to hear about. I will be reading The Manual of Tennessee Real Estate 2020 Edition at least three times in the next three days in order to study for my real estate broker’s exam on Monday! Yes, I know, such a bummer to take precious reading time and spend it studying,  but we have goals to meet and that’s the only way to make it happen. (If it makes you feel better, even though I will be reading these laws over again at least three times this weekend, I will only count it once on my book count for the year.)

I’ve read several romance novels this month, and we’ve only got a few weeks left to take advantage of our Kindle Unlimited subscription, so I’ll more than likely be finishing one more by the 31st. Like Nikki, I too feel like I’m living my best reading life, taking advantage of the opportunity to read some nonfiction I’ve been trying to get around to reading like The Power of Agency, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, and my re-read of Hold Me Tight. I specifically picked up Hold Me Tight again because Nikki said she was reading it, so I decided I needed a re-read in this season of my life. A little self-help refresher, if you will. I’m reading a veritable cocktail of relationship books this month, and because they all focus on similar topics they are hard to keep completely separate in my head. Just like a good series of books that you binge one after another where the characters, themes, and actions blur together, so too are these relationship books shaken up in my head. And this, darling readers, is part of why we re-read.

I do not want to gloss over the romance novel Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas. I had permission one weekend to read whatever I fancied because Nikki and I didn’t have a buddy read in progress, so I went with a KU title that I had seen repeatedly on Bookstagram. Birthday Girl is an age-gap romance. I’m not going to give you any plot points, you can look that up by clicking on the Amazon link above. I had never read an age gap romance novel before and wanted to see if I would like it. I didn’t hate it, but I probably would not choose another with the age of the main female character being under twenty. (Ok, whoops, a plot point.) The way the build up to their romance happened was well done and as respectful as possible. I like this way better than the buddy read romance Nikki and I read that we were supposed to post about, so there’s that going for it. I guess that’s the sticking point: Men written by Women are just BETTER.

Have you met any new book boyfriends lately that you’d like to share with us?

~Ashley

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