I mentioned in my last post that I was able to get quite a bit of reading done on vacation. Isn’t it great when you have unlimited time to read? I miss those vacation days. Anyway, I enjoyed a variety of books, some better than others but all entertaining.

I won’t be doing full reviews on these because at the rate I’m posting I’d never get through them, but I’ve added a sentence or two after each title to let you know some of my thoughts. Books are listed in order that I read them.

Murder In Thrall by Anne Cleeland. This was my airplane book and it held my attention but I was at the same time intrigued and annoyed with both of the main detectives. The woman comes off naïve and needy and the man is borderline creepy. But, I probably would read another just to see what happens with these two.

Life After Life by Jill McCorkle. Liked this one up until the end because of what happens to one character but overall I did like this book.

Casebook by Mona Simpson. Loved this one and may be on my year end favorites list. I especially loved Miles, the young protagonist.

Dreams of Joy by Lisa See. Despite having read the first book, Shanghai Girls, years ago I felt like I was right back in the lives of the characters as I started reading this one. A great conclusion to the family story.

With All My Love by Patricia Scanlan. Generational story of daughters and mother-in-laws. I’ve read some reviews which mention the book went on too long but I thought it was fast read and easy to get into.

Meet Me in Barcelona by Mary Carter. Good start to this suspense novel and I liked the setting but the ending was disappointing.

Covet by Tracey Garvis Graves. A story about a marriage in trouble. I felt sorry for all characters at one point or another.

Missing You by Harlan Coben. I know the author has a lot of fans but this book didn’t do it for me. Granted I had very high expectations. Perhaps I’ll check out some of his series books.

Let me know if you’ve read some of these and what you thought. Next post I’ll have to tell you about some of my bookish buys while I was in Germany. Always fun to buy books when traveling isn’t it?

Oh friends, I’ve been having a fun summer but it’s also been busy and unfortunately I just haven’t put blogging at the top of my list. I hope you’ve all been having a wonderful time and I apologize for not keeping up. I got a bit overwhelmed when I saw my feedly activity. So please do let me know if I’ve missed something important.

Anyway, I’m back sort of. We had a wonderful three week vacation in Germany as we spent time with family and friends, saw a new city and relaxed a lot. I thought I’d be all set for my return but I came back to family visits, friend visits and lots of work. So needless to say, I feel like I’ve been running around a lot this month trying to catch up.

The next few months I have a couple of trips planned and then I’m also trying to get my shop ready for the holidays and other craft fairs. You know where this is going right? Yep, I may not be around as much still. We’ll see, maybe I’ll finally learn the art of time management. Ha. Again, thank you for hanging in there with me.

So, I did read quite a few books while on vacation and bought books too of course so I’ll do a post on that but in the meantime, here are a couple of pictures from our adventures:

We spent a weekend in the Harz Mountains. I’ve been to the Harz several times and I just love this magical place. We boarded a steam train to take us to the highest peak. So much fun. Between that and the scenery I thought I had stepped into a Grimm Fairy Tale.

Then we went south to spend a week in beautiful Freiburg at the foot of the Black Forest. Walked a lot, had a lot of gelato and enjoyed bike rides along the Dreisam river.

I was hoping to escape the Texas heat but it was actually pretty hot in Germany too. Oh well, thank goodness for the gelato and eiscafes!

Alright guys, I hope you have a wonderful weekend and will be back with more book talk!