Monday Reads August 19

Didn’t get so much reading done this past week, had lots going on. Had a little foray to the ER for a kidney stone (not fun, but feeling fine now), went to McMenamins Edgefield to see Pink Martini in concert, and then went to a local jazz concert featuring Jeff Kashiwa and band held on the country club golf course. So not much of that activity lent itself to very much reading. Two of the books I read release tomorrow!

If you want to see more lists of what people have read this week, check out The Book Date link-up

I voluntarily reviewed complimentary review copies of these books. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links, see disclosures for more detail.

Finished This Week

Take Back Your Time by Morgan Tyree

About the Book:

We all get 24 hours in a day–but it never seems like quite enough time, does it? Morgan Tyree wants to help you take back your time with her proven time management system. With energy and enthusiasm, Morgan shows you how to organize and manage your time using her simple three-color time zone system of green, yellow, and red–moxie time, multitasking time, and me time. She shows you how to 

– identify your most productive times each day
– regulate between essentials and nonessentials
– schedule your three time zones
– match your time zones with your capacities
– welcome the season of life you’re in
– set achievable goals that align with your values

If you’ve struggled to find balance and direction in your overloaded life, let Morgan’s system help you discover the freedom of less hustle and more harmony.

My Thoughts: I gave this book 4 stars.

Who doesn’t desire to have more time to do the things you need to and want to do? I certainly do! 
Morgan Tyree has written an easy-to-apply approach to time management in Take Back Your Time.
She weaves in practical, step-by-step advice along with relatable anecdotes about her own life to show how her ideas are achievable.
The basics of her system is to divide your own productive time into three zones: green, yellow, and red. These coincide with times where you need more focus (green), a medium amount of focus (yellow) and less focus and more driven to your particular priorities (red). 
A person should determine their top 5 priorities, find out their best times each day for achieving them, and creating goals that can be met with a targeted approach. The author provides charts, fill in the blank exercises, and other resources so that the reader can do this for themselves. 
Yes, this is all good information that you have probably heard before in one way or another, but Tyree’s enthusiasm is contagious and she makes it seem possible, even for the most unorganized person. Although there is some mention of getting your home organized, overall this book is about organizing your time and your life so that you have space for “fullness” rather than busyness. 
I appreciated her direction and can’t wait to find ways to incorporate her principles into my own schedule so that I can have more focus and more fulfillment.

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

About the Book:

When she stumbles across the ad, she’s looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss—a live-in nannying post, with a staggeringly generous salary. And when Rowan Caine arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten—by the luxurious “smart” home fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family.

What she doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare—one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.

Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the unravelling events that led to her incarceration. It wasn’t just the constant surveillance from the cameras installed around the house, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with booming music, or turned the lights off at the worst possible time. It wasn’t just the girls, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn’t even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around apart from the enigmatic handyman, Jack Grant.

It was everything.

She knows she’s made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn’t always ideal. She’s not innocent, by any means. But, she maintains, she’s not guilty—at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.

My Thoughts: Had to think on how to rate this book, I ended up settling on 3 stars. I like this author, but the last few books she’s written I haven’t really loved the way things turned out. 
What I liked about this book:
The twists were decent. There was at least one that I absolutely didn’t see coming, so that elevated the book for me. The ending was very well put together and I did like how the author concluded the story. 
What I didn’t like:
I thought the pacing was pretty uneven. It was very slow at first, achingly slow and it took me a long time to get into the story. I didn’t feel the author did a very good job with character development, I never really thought I got to know Rowan or understood her at all, even at the end. Her personality was all over the place. And don’t get me started on the parents–what parents, no matter how sophisticated their “smart” house, would let a total stranger take care of their four children for weeks on end, and then get mad at her when she doesn’t follow their notebook to the letter?
The creepy factor of the book could have been SO much more detailed and scary, but it was kind of glossed over and not as much of a driving force as it could have been. I loved the idea of everything, but the execution just wasn’t stellar.
That’s not to say I didn’t like this book or don’t think it’s a worthwhile read, because it is. As a whole, this is a decent thriller that will keep you guessing until the end.

The Whisper Man by Alex North

About the Book:

After the sudden death of his wife, Tom Kennedy believes a fresh start will help him and his young son Jake heal. A new beginning, a new house, a new town. Featherbank.

But the town has a dark past. Twenty years ago, a serial killer abducted and murdered five residents. Until Frank Carter was finally caught, he was nicknamed “The Whisper Man,” for he would lure his victims out by whispering at their windows at night.

Just as Tom and Jake settle into their new home, a young boy vanishes. His disappearance bears an unnerving resemblance to Frank Carter’s crimes, reigniting old rumors that he preyed with an accomplice. Now, detectives Amanda Beck and Pete Willis must find the boy before it is too late, even if that means Pete has to revisit his great foe in prison: The Whisper Man.

And then Jake begins acting strangely. He hears a whispering at his window…

My Thoughts: 3.5 stars
Solidly creepy thriller, although I wasn’t 100% sold on the way things played out. 
I’m not a fan of supernatural elements, and so that turned me against the book fairly quickly. I did appreciate one of those elements in the end though, so it wasn’t all bad. It did cause the book to be more scary, but I personally like a straightforward mystery.
Some things I just didn’t “get”, but the overarching themes of this book are fathers and sons and the damage they can cause each other, and how those rifts can sometimes be repaired and sometimes not. Those portions of the story were the best for me, because I could feel the emotions that the author was putting into the tale. 
This would be an excellent book to read in winter, because that would totally add to the creepy factor. Definitely a book worth reading, especially if you like to feel uneasy and scared throughout your reading experience.

Currently Reading:

The Swallows by Lisa Lutz

About the Book:

When Alexandra Witt joins the faculty at Stonebridge Academy, she’s hoping to put a painful past behind her. Then one of her creative writing assignments generates some disturbing responses from students. Before long, Alex is immersed in an investigation of the students atop the school’s social hierarchy—and their connection to something called the Darkroom. She soon inspires the girls who’ve started to question the school’s “boys will be boys” attitude and incites a resistance. But just as the movement is gaining momentum, Alex attracts the attention of an unknown enemy who knows a little too much about her—and what brought her to Stonebridge in the first place.

Meanwhile, Gemma, a defiant senior, has been plotting her attack for years, waiting for the right moment. Shy loner Norman hates his role in the Darkroom, but can’t find the courage to fight back until he makes an unlikely alliance. And then there’s Finn Ford, an English teacher with a shady reputation, who keeps one eye on his literary ambitions and one on Ms. Witt. As the school’s secrets begin to trickle out, a boys-versus-girls skirmish turns into an all-out war, with deeply personal—and potentially fatal—consequences for everyone involved.

Lisa Lutz’s blistering, timely tale of revenge and disruption shows us what can happen when silence wins out over decency for too long—and why the scariest threat of all might be the idea that sooner or later, girls will be girls.

Currently Listening to:

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

About the Book:

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie cops in the NYPD, live next door to each other outside the city. What happens behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne, sets the stage for the explosive events to come.

Ask Again, Yes is a deeply affecting exploration of the lifelong friendship and love that blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next 40 years. Luminous, heartbreaking, and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes reveals the way childhood memories change when viewed from the distance of adulthood—villains lose their menace and those who appeared innocent seem less so. Kate and Peter’s love story, while haunted by echoes from the past, is marked by tenderness, generosity, and grace.

Up Next:

The Murder List by Hank Phillippi Ryan

About the Book:

Law student Rachel North is the ultimate reliable narrator–she will tell you, without hesitation, what she knows to be true. She’s smart, she’s a hard worker, she does the right thing. She’s successfully married to a faithful and devoted husband, a lion of Boston’s defense bar. And her internship with the powerful District Attorney’s office is her ticket to a successful future. 
Problem is–she’s wrong. Rachel. Jack. Martha. Who is next on The Murder List?
And in this cat and mouse game–the battle for justice becomes a battle for survival. 

A Better Man by Louise Penny

About the Book: Book 15 in this stellar series, if you haven’t read the series, definitely start with Book 1, Still Life

It’s Gamache’s first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Flood waters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter.

As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father.

Increasingly hounded by the question, how would you feel…, he resumes the search.

As the rivers rise, and the social media onslaught against Gamache becomes crueler, a body is discovered. And in the tumult, mistakes are made.

Did you read anything great this week? Any recommendations?