I found a new author I love in the month of November courtesy of a recommendation from my mom. Linda Castillo writes mystery/thriller/suspense books set it Amish Country with a cast of repeating characters. She's written tons of books, but I've never read anything by her, so I went back to the beginning, requested the first book in the series from the library and could not put it down. I can't wait to read the rest of the books she's written over the next several months. 

I read a handful of other books in November too. More on those below. 

Five Stars

Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It has been ages since I tore through a book in just over a day, hating to set it down and looking forward to picking up again, and that's exactly what happened with this book. The opening was dark with a very grisly murder and it was hard to read parts at night because it was a bit creepy, but I was sucked into the story of a serial killer in Amish country and the formerly Amish female chief of police tasked with hunting down the killer. As soon as I finished this, I immediately requested the next book with this character from the library, and I look forward to working my way through them all.

Four Stars

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars, but I rounded up because I thought the book got pretty good at the end after a slow start. It took me a little bit of time to get into this story. In Eden, Kentucky, there's a creepy and mysterious house that no one ever seems to come and go from. Opal walks past it most days on her way to work at the Tractor Supply Store, and she finds herself drawn to it. She meets the owner, and he offers her a job cleaning. The more time Opal spends in the house, the more it calls to her when she's awake and in her dreams. But at the same time there's a faction in town that wants to destroy the house to mine under its land. Opal is torn between wanting to protect the house and wanting to protect her family from the powerful forces looking to control that land. This isn't normally the kind of story I'm drawn too, but I found myself unable to put the book down toward the end wanting to know what happened to Opal.

Canary Girls by Jennifer Chiaverini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a fictional account of the women who worked in munitions factories in Europe during WWI. This story follows four different women from very different life circumstances that find themselves working in the factory. While the men are gone, the women not only do the work, but they also form a professional soccer league, playing games against other mutionettes to raise money for charity. I feel like most historical fiction I've read has been set during WWII so this was a nice change from that!

My Murder by Katie Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I didn't know what rating to give this book because I liked it, but it was so weird. Lou is part of a serial killers survivors group -- and by survivors, it means everyone in the group was murdered and then brought back to life as some sort of clone. So you have to walk into this book suspending all sense of reality. It's hard to write too much of a summary without giving some key plot points away, but this was a weird, but enjoyable read.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a really lovely book about mothers, daughters, their relationships, and grief. At times it was hard to read because it's impossible to imagine the pain of losing a mother to cancer.

Three Stars

Playing the Witch Card by K.J. Dell'Antonia
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was looking for something fun and Halloween-y to read around the holiday, and I had really enjoyed another book by this author. This book however moved a little slow until the very end, then it picked up and I appreciated the extra action. I guessed the twist pretty early on (which I don't always mind), and it felt like there was an extra storyline that wasn't totally necessary. I also kept wanting to yell at the main character because she seemed to never learn as the book went on. So overall kind of only felt so so about this one.

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I had several more DNFs in October -- I'm clearly getting better at putting down books I'm just not that into. But I also read some really great books this month. Demon Copperhead was long, and took me at least two weeks to read, so my number of books read definitely went down a bit this month. But that book was worth it. Here's what else I read (and finished) this month.

Five Stars

The Breakaway by Jennifer Weiner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved everything about this book. First off, I almost always love anything by Jennifer Weiner, she just tells the best stories. And secondly, I particularly loved this storyline of a woman finding herself, her confidence, her path forward through sports/athletics. I was sad to put this down when I finished it because reading it just made me so happy.

Four Stars

Forever Hold Your Peace by Liz Fenton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was such a fun and fast read. A young couple gets engaged in Italy after knowing each other for only a few weeks. When they get their divorced parents together for a meet-the-parents moment back in California over brunch, things go extremely sideways and not just because at least two of the parents think the engagement happened much too fast.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A modern take on David Copperfield, set in in the heart of the opioid epidemic in Appalachia. This was a great and heartbreaking book, but it was really long, which is why I only gave it four stars instead of five. There were a few parts of Demon Copperhead's story that I thought could have been condensed a bit, but overall, I wanted to keep reading because I wanted to see if Demon ever caught a break in life.

Wicked Witch Murder by Leslie Meier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This cozy witchy murder mystery was perfect for this time of year. After failing to finish so many books last month, I was happy to find a book that I was excited to pick up again every time I had to put it down. The book opens with the mysterious death of the leader of a local Wiccan coven. Lucy Stone is a reporter intent on getting to the bottom of the mysterious death before any more trouble gets stirred up.

Three Stars

Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby To Love Good Food by Gill Rapley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this up because in like two months we have to figure out how to introduce solid food to our kiddo. I wished this book had a bit more how-to and bit less theory/convincing that this was the method to use. (I was already fairly bought in to this method, so this book was probably better for someone that wasn't sure which approach they wanted to take).

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don’t know if it was just me, but it took me a minute to realize this was a story in a story, and for the first bit of the book that left me kind of confused. Once I got past that, I enjoyed Lara telling her daughters the story of her romance with a famous actor when she was in her 20s. I liked the way the author didn’t need to beat you over the head with Covid to know this book was set during the pandemic and it’s what brought all Lara’s daughters home

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At the end of August, I wrote a blog post about what I was doing to rebuild my fitness after my C-section. Back then, I was pretty happy with the progress I was making. The scar massage was really helping with mobility around my incision, and I was starting to build back my strength and endurance by lengthening my walks. I was hopeful I'd be able to start easing back into running.

But my body wasn't healing properly after the C-section. At my 6-week follow up appointment with my OB, my doctor told me to monitor a few of the symptoms I was still having and if they hadn't resolved by 8-10 weeks, I'd need to come back in for an ultrasound. 

Unfortunately for me, those symptoms didn't resolve on their own. So in early September, they got me in for an ultrasound, which showed something abnormal near the internal incision from the C-section. In order to get better imaging and give my doctor a better sense of what was going on, I had to go for an MRI. 

After waiting for a week to get the results of the MRI, I had another appointment with my OB to talk through the options. Going into the appointment, I knew I'd need another surgery, and the MRI would dictate how major of a surgery it would be. Because the theme of this pregnancy and postpartum period was that I have the worst possible luck, I of course found out I needed the version of the surgery that amounted to another C-section, aided by a camera inserted through my belly button. It was both a laparotomy and laparoscopy.  

To say I was devastated would be a huge understatement. 

I couldn't believe I was going to have to go through another major abdominal surgery and start the healing and recovery process all over again. 

But that's what happened. I had the second surgery at the end of September. It was outpatient this time so I got to sleep in my own bed instead of a hospital bed this time around. The doctor was able to make the abdominal incision on top of my existing C-section scar, and the belly button incision is not noticeable at all. The anesthesia made me puke multiple times again -- once in the car on the drive home. And there's really nothing like the pain of puking after your abs have been sliced open.

Recovery has been long and hard both mentally and physically the second time around. My kiddo is bigger, and I wasn't allowed to lift him for about three weeks post-op. I was incredibly sore for the first week and had to do the same rotation of ibuprofen and Tylenol every three hours like back in July. We luckily had lots of help from my parents, Ben's aunt and Ben's mom. But there is nothing more heartbreaking than hearing my little guy cry and not be able to pick him up to comfort him.

When I had a follow up appointment with my doctor two weeks ago, he was happy with my healing process this time around, which is good, but I'm still not cleared to do any real exercise yet beyond walking. 

So here I am, starting my recovery all over again. I'm doing the scar message and core engagement work, but I'll be honest, I'm not as good about remembering to do it as I was the first time around. It was just really demoralizing to take such a huge step back in the program that I was following, and some days my heart just really isn't into it. 

I am slowly rebuilding my walking endurance. Walking at least gets me out of the house for fresh air. I'm up to three miles of walking now which is great, but not really close to the five miles I was walking pre-surgery. 

And at this point postpartum, I thought I'd be back to running and all my regular activities again. My mom and I had even picked out a race we were planning to do together in December. But now, I have two more weeks of waiting to even get cleared to begin regular exercise again, and that's tough. 

My little guy is almost four months old, but my body is only healed as if I were five weeks postpartum. This has all just been really hard. I know some day it will all be just a blip of a memory, but it has been really frustrating having all my progress wiped out and starting from zero again.