Book Life Rambles

Butter, Sugar, Magic by Jessica Roseberg G👀dreads Embracing a midlife transformation has never been more delicious. At best, she’s expecting a kitschy candy dish, at worst a beloved taxidermied pet, so when Cassie—newly divorced, single mom with zero prospects—discovers she’s inheriting a fully stocked bakery along with a beautifully furnished apartment from a great aunt she’d never even heard of, she’s convinced she must be dreaming. The apartment bizarrely adapting itself to her whims and the friendly neighbor floating fireballs in the air aren’t helping. Cassie has two choices. She can hightail it out of this bewildering town and figure out a way to support her pre-teen daughter. Or she can stay and live the life of her dreams in this unsettling place where the rules of physics don’t seem to apply, and people are suspiciously friendly and welcoming. When Cassie and her daughter agree to give this new place a trial run (the fantastic pet shop next door is a helpful draw), she’s not ...

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn G👀dreads A haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era. Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare. Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible sec...

These Is My Words, The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine 1881-19012 G👀dreads A moving, exciting, and heartfelt American saga inspired by the author's own family memoirs, these words belong to Sarah Prine, a woman of spirit and fire who forges a full and remarkable existence in a harsh, unfamiliar frontier. Scrupulously recording her steps down the path Providence has set her upon—from child to determined young adult to loving mother—she shares the turbulent events, both joyous and tragic, that molded her, and recalls the enduring love with cavalry officer Captain Jack Elliot that gave her strength and purpose. Rich in authentic everyday details and alive with truly unforgettable characters, These Is My Words brilliantly brings a vanished world to breathtaking life again. Genre: Historical Fiction, Western RSCBC = RSCBC BookClubRead ⭐⭐⭐⭐ This was a book club pick. I liked it more than I thought I would, especially after living in Arizona for almost 30 years and recently moving to Southern...