Sundays with Sam - The Sunday Post

Sundays with Sam is a combination of Sunday Post hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

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My Week in Review

Happy Sunday! I hope all are doing well. What did I do? I read and went to work. I really am super boring. My jacket came, and it was even nicer in person than it was on the internet. I liked the color more in person too, so a win for me! 

I have been enjoying the warmer temperatures. I love reading on the patio, so I am going to be out there every day after work to get my pages read. Did you all see that Kindle has series recaps? I am not reading many series these days, but I thought it was a brilliant thing to offer readers. 

On the Blog

• Monday: Reviews - 32 Days in May, All the Signs
• Tuesday: TTT - Surprise!
• Wednesday: CWW - Consider Yourself Kissed, Pride and Puppies
• Thursday: Reviews - A Home for the Holidays, Pomona Afton Can So Solve a Murder
• Friday: Six Degrees of Separation - What Happened to the McCays?
• Saturday: Sloth Goes Places - Kentucky

Let's Discuss

• Check out some unpopular bookish opinions over at Based on A True Story
• Jen discusses Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

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Stacking the Shelves

I have been going wild on Netgalley. I just realized I downloaded 16 books this month. I am sticking with my eight (or nine) for each publication month, but that's a lot at once. I got a few great approvals, but it was those Read Now books that got me again. In all fairness, all those books were on my TBR and most are by authors I have enjoyed in the past. 

I was surprised to see Josie Silver with a second book coming out this year. I love her stuff, so I had to request. And, you all know holidays books are my weakness. They are starting to flood Netgalley, so I will need to calm down. 

Netgalley/Edelweiss

• Kitty St. Clair's Last Dance by Kate Robb
• Crazy Spooky Love by Josie Silver
• A Spell for Midwinter's Heart by Morgan Lockhart
• Christmas People by Iva-Marie Palmer
• Never Over by Clare Gilmore
• You Make It Feel Like Christmas by Sophie Sullivan

Purchased/Free

• Off the Record by Chelle Sloan

Invites

• With Friends Like These by Alissa Lee
• The Gallery Assistant by Kate Belli

Read Last Week

This was a solid week but kind of disappointing. There were a few books I expected to rate higher than they did. I enjoyed Hoffman's short story, but I think I rated it lower than the previous installments because of a major choice she made which is just too much like my real life right now. Pride & Puppies was fun and cute, just like the other books in the series, but I felt like the author harped on a few points in this story. You have to know when to stop beating the horse. Mansion Beach felt a bit different from the previous Block Island books. I think it was because it was a Great Gatsby retelling. I will say, the author did a good job capturing that Gatsby tone, but that's kind of sad. I did like a few changes Moore made and thought she gave the characters more hopeful endings than the original. 

My highest rated books both had a touch of magic. In Love and Other Parodoxes, a character from the future travels back in time on a sort of fan excursion. She actually was not a fan, but was hoping to alter the past in order to change the future. The Other Side of Now features an unhappy Hollywood actress who finds herself in an alternate life. These stories were quite different from each other, but equally wonderful. 

Find all my reviews on Goodreads

Books

• Love and Other Paradoxes by Catriona Silvery - ★★★★ 1/2
• Pride & Puppies by Lizzie Shane - ★★★★
• The Bookstore Family by Alice Hoffman - ★★★★
• Mansion Beach by Meg Mitchell Moore - ★★★★
• The Other Side of Now by Paige Harbison - ★★★★ 1/2

Audiobooks

• Fake as Puck by Sarah Smith - ★★★ 1/2

Currently Reading

• Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• Under the Table by Janet Evanovich

To Be Read

• Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) by Jesse Q. Sutanto
• All Together Now by Matthew Norman
• It's a Love Story by Annabel Monaghan
• Eat Post Like by Emily Arden Wells

How was your week?
Let us know in the comments!