The heart wants what the heart wants, and our hearts want books.

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Ashley IN MEDIAS RES

• The Dare by Lauren Landish
• Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat; The BRRRR Rental Property Investment Strategy Made Simple by David Greene

Nikki IN MEDIAS RES

• What if It’s True? A Storyteller’s Journey with Jesus by Charles Martin
• The Case of the Left-Handed Lady: An Enola Holmes Mystery by Nancy Springer
• The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Ashley FIN

• Ninja Selling: Subtle Skills. Big Results by Larry Kendall
• Akata Warrior (#2) by Nnedi Okorafor
• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
• Akata Witch (#1) by Nnedi Okorafor
• The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton
• Good Girl Gone Badd by Jasinda Wilder
• Serpent & Dove (#1) by Shelby Mahurin
• Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
• Badd to the Bone by Jasinda Wilder
• The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

Nikki FIN

• The Dare by Lauren Landish
• Akata Warrior (#2) by Nnedi Okorafor
• The Case of the Missing Marquess (Enola Holmes #1) by Nancy Springer
• Sanditon, Lady Susan, & The History of England by Jane Austen
• Akata Witch (#1) by Nnedi Okorafor
• The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton
• Serpent & Dove (#1) by Shelby Mahurin
• Good Girl Gone Badd by Jasinda Wilder
• Badd to the Bone by Jasinda Wilder
• The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran
• Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
• Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston
• The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

I can not remember now when I realized how very close I was to reaching 100 books this month, but I think it was around the 10th or 11th. I looked in my planner for both my Reading Life Plan of Attack and my 2020 Reading Log and realized that hitting my 2020 goal by the end of Quarter 3, meaning by Midnight September 30th I would have read 100 books, was going to be a big possibility, but I was going to need to be intentional about it.  At the time I had 9 left to go and about 20 days in which to do it. I’m pretty sure when Nikki and I were discussing this as a possibility there were lots of this gif floating around in our text stream: 

I’ll let you know on Thursday what my official count will be, but as of this writing I have 3 to go. One I’ll finish today, and therefore have the rest of today, Tuesday, and Wednesday to read 2 more books. I’m in progress on one that’s been hovering there for a while, and I want it G-O-N-E, gone, baby, gone. You might notice that my In Medias Res list is a little shorter than usual, it doesn’t mean that I’m not pondering those titles that have been stuck there most of the year, or that I’m not literally IN THE MIDDLE of reading them. But, I’m going to institute a new rule: If I haven’t opened the book in 3 months, I’m no longer reading it. I haven’t opened Little Women because I’ve been prepping for December’s deep dive and want to bring my intensity and a fresh read to virtual book club on December 11th. I also haven’t opened Profit First since my last gym session (cause that was my treadmill book). As for The Revelation of Louisa May, I had opened it and started two pages and decided I was going to read other things first. I certainly won’t be opening it back up until our #witchyreads month is over. Which means November, yo. 

I have been intentional in my pursuit of reaching this milestone this month because sometimes you just need a big fat win even if it becomes a bit of a challenge. But, all goals are like that to an extent. I knew going into 2020 that 100 books wasn’t going to be a big stretch goal. I did 136 out of 75 last year. But, the year before was 67 out of 52, so I’ve been consistent in upping the score. But, doing 100 books with 3 months left to go…yeah, that’s a bit of a push. Having a book buddy for ACCOUNTABILITY has been the biggest game changer in my reading life. (Though, to get kinda woo woo emotional, having Nikki in my life period is a game changer on so many levels.) Sharing my goal with you, dear readers, has also been a big motivator. I haven’t had many wins on my other 2020 goals, somewhat thanks to the virus-that-must-not-be-named, so having at least one that I can say I have CRUSHED is a big step to keeping up the excitement and forward momentum in my life. But the only way I would have even known that I reached my goal is that I measured it. (In several places, but that’s the Enneagram 1 in me.) I also had a plan, which was repeatedly tweaked, to balance all the different ways I read, and then executed. Not always in a way that made my inner critic happy, but executed. Progress not perfection. Maybe this’ll be the year I get to 140 books? Who knows.  [Nikki here: Challenge Accepted.]

You know what I do know? That we have another #virtualbookclub coming up on October 30th! To give ourselves a little bit of a break from all our #witchyreads, but to keep us in that October mood, Grady Hendrix’s debut novel, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires is, according to the marketing copy: Steel Magnolias meets Dracula in this ’90s-set horror novel about a women’s book club that must do battle with a mysterious newcomer to their small Southern town, perfect for murderinos and fans of Stephen King. We are branching out in our genres and you can register to join us in the adventure here.

~Ashley

Dear readers, I sat down to write this with one path in mind, and now that I’ve looked at the list another has drawn my attention, so here we go.  I feel like this month’s list is the most representative of my reading life overall.  There are several open-door romance novels and a closed-door historical fiction.  There are Young Adult titles, and a middle grade title, that I will be recommending to you and to young people (and young readers at heart) in my life.  There’s a book that is three months old, one that’s 25 years old.  Another that’s closer to 200 years old, and one that’s content is only 80 or so, even if the book has been out less than a year.  There is practical business advice, and there are Gospel stories retold by a novelist (who is a conservative evangelical, so that’s a thing made it an … interesting read).  In case I haven’t been clear, I just like books, and lots of them.  Horror is the only thing I can confidently say is off the table (except Anne Bogel and Ashley convinced me for virtual book club next month, please join us!).  I like a good thriller or science fiction title now and again, but romance, historical fiction, and YA are my jam.  I don’t mind if awful, tragic things happen, so long as there’s hope too, and I like books with strong female characters, huge bonus points if they’re part of an ensemble who is making magic happen (literally or figuratively).  

Now, to where I originally thought this was going.  When Ashley mentioned around September 10 that she thought it’d be fun if we could wrap up our 2020 reading goals by the end of the third quarter, I was in, 1,000%.  Partially because I like supporting my friends on a good challenge, and partially because I knew this would be no challenge for me at all.  My challenge would be to wrap up titles that were in progress (which were honestly starting to bug me, very much as Ashley’s were).  As of September 10ish when Ashley shared her goal, I had six books to go (which didn’t include two I was reading at the time) in 20 or so days.  Given my goal of averaging two books a week for 52 weeks, reading 6 books (or really more like 5 given the in progress titles) in nearly 3 weeks, it was an easy yes.  As she’s already shared, completing the goal for herself has been a bit more challenging, but she knew that when she took on this goal, and also, she cleaned up her Currently Reading Shelf and I’m so proud of her!  See also: TAKE THE WINS!

Most of these titles have been in the planning stages for a while for one reason or another.  Some have been on the October potential post list for months, others took up residence on my TBR list ages ago, but two snuck in quickly.  I didn’t know the series existed, and then suddenly book one was on my kindle, and I listened to it consumed it in three days.  I don’t generally listen to books unless it’s in with my children, but I blame Henry Cavill.  That’s right, I’m blaming an actor for my bookish issues.  What had happened was Netflix showed me “Enola Holmes,” and then Ashley and I discussed it, and then Adam and I discussed it.  Both times it went something like: “Hey there’s this new show and Henry Cavill is in it.”  “I’M IN!”  Of course I’m paraphrasing (but not much with Adam honestly), and then I learned it was based on a book, so I naturally wanted to read the book before watching it on screen.  Then, when Ashley shared this Instagram video with the main characters, I immediately checked out the version of the book available to me (which was audio) and got started listening.  I listened on 1.2 and it was a joy!  The characters are fun and I’m excited to watch and to read/listen more, and *may* have checked out The Case of the Left Handed Lady as I was returning The Case of the Missing Marquess.  I definitely started the second book after watching the trailer yesterday (and Adam is now legit excited because he was in for Henry Cavill, then I said it was a period piece and he was skeptical, as I failed to point out the Sherlock Holmes connection.  Oops.)  Ashley has already seen “Enola Holmes” and we’ve already slightly compared notes (as she plans to read and I plan to watch), so we know there are some creative licenses taken with the story, but I’m still really excited to see what they’ve done with the adaptation and also watch Henry Cavill, Millie Bobbie Brown, and Superman, I mean Sam Claflin.  

What has you excited to read recently?  

~Nikki

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Dear readers, are you ready for another bit of insight into how the Heart.Wants.Books sauce is made?  Well, here it is.  I’ve shared that if I wait too long to draft a post, then I get all sorts of things wrong about the book (incorrectly referring to Bennett sisters is the most memorable I can come up with right now), and Ashley has to work extra hard to fix my mess, so I just try not to wait.  Ideally, I finish a book and then process a few days and write it up.  I’m always reading something, so this is a delicate balance of processing and reading and sometimes it works better than others.  We’ve made no secret that we’ve started #witchyreads in preparation for a month-long celebration in October (which #spoileralert, starts a week from today, or at Virtual Book Club last Friday, whichever), so I’ll not hold back and share that I finished The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton in two days (yes, TWO) and then jumped straight into an intense witchy read.  That was not my best plan dear readers.  Now I have a quiet moment to think and type and I’m consumed by this witchy read, and also distracted by the recent hurricane that has ravished parts of the Gulf Coast.  Here’s the thing though, I’m also resisting the urge to check out and/or one click Cleeton’s back list.  Too many great books is a glorious problem to have!

The Last Train to Key West is historical fiction, with a heaping side of romance, that follows the lives of three very different women leading up to and immediately following the Labor Day hurricane that hit the Florida Keys in 1935.  We meet each of these three women in Key West.  Helen grew up in Key West and is struggling in her abusive marriage, lasting this long because of her husband’s frequent absences on his fishing boat.  Mirta has just entered into an arranged marriage and is honeymooning in the Keys on her way from trying to help her family and escape the politics in Cuba to her new life in New York with her notorious husband she is just getting to know.  Elizabeth has come to Florida in search of the sender of a letter, and a way out of the mess her family is in following the stock market crash of 1929.  I knew nothing about the hurricane, one of the strongest and deadliest to hit the US,  before reading this book, only that there was a hurricane as a plot point in this book.  Here’s why we read the author’s notes and acknowledgements: Cleeton, a Florida native, wrote this book because she’d read about the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, and the tragic loss of so many World War I veterans who were in the Keys working on the highway.  I don’t know about you all, but historical fiction is my favorite way to learn about history.  As a political science major who also did a deep dive into the first half of the twentieth century in AP US History, the Bonus Army wasn’t news to me, but what happened with the veterans after they left Washington, D.C. wasn’t something I remembered from school (and may not have even been covered), so I’m especially glad to have this story told in a new way.  

While The Last Train to Key West, really is about how the 1935 Labor Day hurricane affects those in its path, it’s also about man’s efforts to dominate nature, how the Keys and mother nature refused, and how the Great Depression affected people from different socio-economic backgrounds.  All of that is told through the lens of our three women who are each trying to make the best of various abhorrent situations and do anything they can to save their families and create a better life for themselves, IN THE MIDDLE OF A HORRIFIC HURRICANE.  One thing I adore about more recent titles in general is the inclusion of consent.  Elizabeth is clear from the start that she knows her power as a woman and does not hold back her opinions from Sam, mainly that cultural acceptance is the only thing limiting her.  From her first page, we know Mirta has concerns about the (lack of a) physical side of her arranged marriage to a practical stranger.  For all of Anthony’s issues, he is kind to his wife, in and out of bed, and makes it clear that he wants a real marriage and he’s not going to mess that up by rushing marital relations that his proper society wife isn’t emotionally ready to handle.  While the bedroom scenes are closed-door, we know he takes his time, and is open with her about why.  I don’t want to speak about Helen’s experiences because spoilers, but we know her husband is abusive, and others who interact with her know this too and are very considerate of her past experiences.  THIS IS THE WAY.  

I want to say more about this, but also I don’t.  The Last Train to Key West is beautifully written with gorgeous descriptions, and the women have depth, even though we track three main characters in only 300 pages (most of the book takes place in only a few days).  There is a bit of a bow at the end, but not enough for me (and I’m hoping for more since this is a June 2020 release, but not expecting it as her next book will take readers back to Cuba in May).  I give this book an enthusiastic four stars.  While I am not likely to reread this any time soon (unless we get a follow up and then I am very likely to reread), I am stoked to dig into Cleeton’s back list, and not just Next Year in Havana and When We Left Cuba, but also her romance novels too!  [Ashley Here: From what I found researching & reading reviews on the internet, all three of these novels follow female members of the Perez family from Cuba…so, yeah for a re-read buddy!]

What’s a book you’ve read that made you want to dive deep into the author’s backlist?  Or, what’s a fictional book that you adore for the way it brings history to life?

~Nikki 

This is my first Chanel Cleeton novel and like Nikki I am ready to dive into her backlist – except #witchyreads are priority for now. Per the usual, I’m here to give you the info on the author, and I am not going to lie that I was astonished and amazed by Chanel Cleeton, Esq. A native Floridian, Cleeton received her undergraduate degree in International Relations from The American International University in London, her Masters in Global Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and earned her Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law. She has lived all over the world and has been interested in history and storytelling her whole life, figuratively cutting her teeth on her family’s stories of their exodus from Cuba following the Cuban Revolution. Her debut historical fiction novel, Next Year in Havana, was the Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick in July 2018, even though the book was released in February of that year. I am here for anything else she writes and this 4 star read has a high probability to be on the re-read list in the future.

Yes, it’s high Atlantic hurricane season during September 2020, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has gone Greek for the second time in the history of naming tropical storms. Once the 21 alphabetical names are used up (names never begin with Q, U, X, Y, or Z), storms are named after the Greek Alphabet. Typically the season begins on June first and runs until November thirtieth, but per usual 2020 style, Arthur was our first named storm on May sixteenth. This is only the second time in the history of naming storms the NOAA has used the Greek alphabet since the inception of naming in the early 1950’s, the first time being the 2005 season infamous for Katrina which we covered in our July post on Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House. So, it’s a little weird to be calling the hurricane that takes place during The Last Train to Key West the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, but here we are, having to discuss a Category 5 hurricane without a name, the only one of the four Cat 5’s on record that have hit the United States without a name.

What I find really interesting, after quite a bit more Google research, is that the railroad, Flagler’s Folly, the Overseas Railroad, or the Florida Overseas Railroad (all names for the same thing) really did have a final train into Key West; it was the one upon which Elizabeth arrives into town. Once the storm hits on the Monday evening no more trains will be able to make it to Key West, 40 miles of track were washed away by the storm near the village of Islamorada, where the majority of our story takes place. If you look at the Google map here, you will see that Islamorada is basically the mid-point between Miami and Key West. Between our Bluewater Billionaire babes books in February (they’re on sale for $.99 each and we one-clicked), Their Eyes Were Watching God in August, and this book, I’m ready for a trip to Florida, hurricanes, schmurricanes. (PS: the hurricane that takes place in Their Eyes Were Watching God was based upon a 1928 hurricane even though the book wasn’t published until 1937. Y’welcome.)

I guess I should actually talk about the book, since that’s what you come to us for, but I am a historian so I know you give me much grace in needing to share all the nuggets of info I come upon in my quest for more story background. Cleeton’s writing is evocative and intense, the reader is sucked in and I can’t believe it was only 300ish pages for a story so deeply personal to all three women which involved their background, their men, and a freaking natural disaster. It should have been more and yet I read it so quickly (also 2 days!) it felt like much less. Who I really loved were many of the local characters who play such a part in Helen’s past and much of the present story – like Ruby of Ruby’s Diner and Helen’s aunt. One of my favorite lines comes from Helen’s aunt: “I hate to tell you, but there’s no such thing as a ‘right time’ in life. Things happen when they need to happen. The rest sort of falls into place.” I want to be an Aunt just like her. Loving, accepting, independent, fiscally responsible, and doling out bits of wisdom you’d never expect just like she were Socrates. I probably could never be such a cool hotel owner, though TBH I’ve wanted to be Lorelei Gilmore when I grew up since before being Lorelei Gilmore was an option. (I want to have a B&B y’all.) In conclusion, I also wish, too, that at the beginning of my marriage I had pushed to have more of a partnership of equals rather than what others had told me to want from my relationship, #traditionalgenderroles, so that I could now feel more empowered in making the choices that I have made as regards my career and trajectory towards perpetual #AuntLife. I wish I had had that person telling me “You Do You” as a twenty-something rather than as a thirty-something, but things happen when they need to happen, so that’s why we’re here talking about it now.

Is there a novel you’ve read recently that has passages or characters that hit you in a certain way that you wish your younger self could have benefited from the knowledge?

~Ashley

PS: Check out this Book Club Kit from the author, with food and drink recipes, an extended reading list, and even a Spotify playlist!