We have reached that point in the season where your decision to go out is dependent on whether or not you want to throw on your jacket, search for a semi-warm place to loiter with your peeps, and take thirty to fifty minutes to figure out what to eat.
If that was as unappealing for you to read as it was for me to type, then let us boycott the outside world, and dive into the tales that the writers of today have worked so diligently to craft.
Check out Bookstr’s Three to Read, the three books we’ve picked for you to read this week!
Our Hot Pick
Twice in a Blue Moon
Synopsis:
Sam Brandis was Tate Jones’s first: Her first love. Her first everything. Including her first heartbreak.
During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do: sharing all of their hopes, dreams, and deepest secrets along the way. Sam was the first, and only, person that Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world’s biggest film stars—ever revealed her identity to. So when it became clear her trust was misplaced, her world shattered for good.
Fourteen years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he’s the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Forced to confront the man who betrayed her, Tate must ask herself if it’s possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason… and whether “once in a lifetime” can come around twice.
Why?
Whether we love the idea of love, or love to love, or love a good love story, even the crankiest of us root for love to prevail. The feels are strong with New York Times bestselling authors Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. Their latest release, Twice in a Blue Moon, captures all the emotions of dealing with the unpredictable adventure and rollercoaster—there are undoubtedly many downs here and there—that is your first love. Shondaland reviews, “This emotional, sweet, and surprising novel about first loves and second chances will leave a tender spot in your heart.”
Our Coffee Shop Read
Curious Toys
Synopsis:
In the sweltering summer of 1915, Pin, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a carnival fortune-teller, dresses as a boy and joins a teenage gang that roams the famous Riverview amusement park, looking for trouble.
Unbeknownst to the well-heeled city-dwellers and visitors who come to enjoy the midway, the park is also host to a ruthless killer who uses the shadows of the dark carnival attractions to conduct his crimes. When Pin sees a man enter the Hell Gate ride with a young girl, and emerge alone, she knows that something horrific has occurred.
The crime will lead her to the iconic outsider artist Henry Darger, a brilliant but seemingly mad man. Together, the two navigate the seedy underbelly of a changing city to uncover a murderer few even know to look for.
Why?
Time to move over, True Grit. A new unlikely buddy-cop duo has arrived. Elizabeth Hand’s Curious Toys is a transportative, historical thriller, providing a protagonist with a knack for action and initiative, against the backdrop of turn-of-the-century Chicago. In an age without Google Maps or the internet, Pin will use nothing but her wits and her brilliance to root out the city’s elusive murderer. Take this thriller to your next coffee stop—just in case the caffeine doesn’t do enough to get you pumped.
Our Dark Horse
Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years
Synopsis:
In this follow-up to her critically acclaimed memoir, Home, Julie Andrews shares reflections on her astonishing career, including such classics as Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Victor/Victoria.
In Home, the number one New York Times international bestseller, Julie Andrews recounted her difficult childhood and her emergence as an acclaimed singer and performer on the stage.
With this second memoir, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, Andrews picks up the story with her arrival in Hollywood and her phenomenal rise to fame in her earliest films–Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. Andrews describes her years in the film industry — from the incredible highs to the challenging lows. Not only does she discuss her work in now-classic films and her collaborations with giants of cinema and television, she also unveils her personal story of adjusting to a new and often daunting world, dealing with the demands of unimaginable success, being a new mother, the end of her first marriage, embracing two stepchildren, adopting two more children, and falling in love with the brilliant and mercurial Blake Edwards. The pair worked together in numerous films, including Victor/Victoria, the gender-bending comedy that garnered multiple Oscar nominations.
Cowritten with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, and told with Andrews’s trademark charm and candor, Home Work takes us on a rare and intimate journey into an extraordinary life that is funny, heartrending, and inspiring.
Why?
If anyone deserves a sequel to their memoir, it’s Julie Andrews (there’s a reason why The Sound of Music is always getting re-released in theaters). Andrews recounts the larger-than-life journey that is her Hollywood fame and success, while also opening up about her personal turmoils across the years. If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about the legendary icon behind the legendary voice, Home Work will make an ultimate fan out of you.
Fun fact—Julie Andrews voiced the giant ancient sea monster in Aquaman. Let that “sink” in.