I had hoped to get my November reads up earlier, but covid finally got me in early December, and I feel like I've basically spent the entire month sick. I'm slowly on the mend and trying to catch up on work and a backlog of life things that just didn't happen while I was stuck in bed. I can't wait until the last symptoms finally go away. I'm really over it.

Anyway aside from that November was a decent month of reading. Lots of four star books, and really only one book that didn't land for me.

Four Stars

Things We Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was a fun read with a couple of good twists and turns. It jumps back and forth in time as two different mysteries blend together. When the book opens Paris is found in the bathroom covered in her husband's blood. She's arrested for his murder, but as the police dig the evidence doesn't hold up. But it doesn't clearly point toward an obvious suspect either. At the same time, the book flashes backward and you learn more about Paris' mysterious past. I tore through this book and thought it was a fun thriller.

The Cage by Bonnie Kistler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Two women enter an elevator and only one comes out alive. Is it murder, is it suicide, is it something else entirely? While only the first chapter of this book takes place in the actual elevator, the rest of the book jumps back in time and works forward to how the two women end up in the elevator. I largely enjoyed this book and thought it was an interesting premise.

The Homewreckers by Mary Kay Andrews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a fun read that combined my love of HGTV shows with romcom fun and a mystery. Hattie works for her father-in-law flipping houses in Savannah. A TV producer stumbles on her work and pitches her on the idea of starring in a reality show about restoring historic homes. While hesitant at first, Hattie signs on and things start to spiral. There's a surprise cohost, an intense filming schedule and then a wallet from a missing woman shows up on the property they're restoring. Light and fun with enough suspense thrown in from the mystery.

A Million Junes by Emily Henry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I got this book through a blind date with a book from a bookstore in Savannah, and it ended up being such a delightful treat. It's YA and tells the story of June and Saul, who've been warned by their families for years to stay away from each other because bad things happen when members of their families mix. Young love, magic, forbidden destinations. This was just a fun world to inhabit for a few days.

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Two Stars

Every Last Lie by Mary Kubica
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

For me this book missed the mark a little bit. It had gotten some solid reviews, and the premise of a little girl in a car accident who starts to remember bits and pieces of what happened even though the police write it off as an accident sounded interesting to me. But I found the main character pretty unlikeable and that just made it hard for me to really enjoy this book.

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There's nothing I love more than taking advantage of a government holiday to plan a quick trip out of town. A few years ago we used Veterans Day weekend to go to Paris, and this year, we used the same holiday weekend to visit Quebec City. 

I've never been to Canada before (other than passing through an airport), and I had heard the architecture of Quebec City was like nothing you'll see in North America. Plus the fact that my husband has French Canadian roots and he speaks French well made it an easy destination choice. 

We left town on Friday and basically everything that could go wrong with every flight did. Our first flight was super delayed. When we landed, we had 15 minutes to get off the plane, get through customs and find our next gate before the plane doors would close. Yes we were those people sprinting through the airport. We made it, just in time for the next flight to be delayed for mechanical issues. 

It was a real journey but we got to Quebec eventually. We basically just found our hotel and went in search of food because we were starving. 

We ended up at a great little spot with excellent French food. I've never eaten such excellent French onion soup in my life. 

We strolled along Petit Champlain for a bit after dinner. A lot of the shops had already closed for the evening, but we saw lots of the initial set up for the holiday markets, which open around Thanksgiving. 

On Saturday, Quebec was going to be getting the remnants of Hurricane Nicole, so we tried to strategically plan the day so we had plenty of opportunities to get out of the rain. 

We started the morning with a tour of Parliament. The building itself was really beautiful and very ornate. I found it interesting to learn about how Canada's federal parliament operates versus the parliament in the provinces. You could draw a loose analogy to the differences of state and federal government in the U.S., but there are also some pretty big differences. 

I also learned a lot more about the different populations that made up Quebec during its founding and formative times. I knew about the French and the British, but I didn't know the Quebec also had a large Irish population as a result of the potato famine. 

Our guide explained that's why there are so many Irish pubs in Quebec. 

The other really cool thing we did on Saturday was take a tour of the Morrin Centre. This building has been reincarnated multiple times over its life. It started as a prison, that mostly held people for public drunkenness or prostitution. Then it became a university, one of the early schools to have co-ed classes. And now it's a library. 

Our tour guide was a hoot as she took us through some of the old classrooms and labs and eventually down into the old prison cells where you can still see people's names carved into the wood.

Apparently I was enjoying things so much I took zero pictures.

I'm not sure I would have found this tour if I hadn't been looking for things to do inside because of the weather, but I'm so glad we did it. It was really fun.

Since the rain had largely cleared out by that point, we spent the rest of the day strolling through the Plains of Abraham along the St. Lawrence River. 

We had hoped to stop for a drink at the bar at Le Chateau Frontenac, which is the massive hotel that really helps define the skyline in Quebec. But there was a wedding at the hotel that day and everything was packed. 

We did get to enjoy the holiday displays though before a delicious dinner featuring traditional Quebec food. 

Sunday was another dubious weather day, but we were lucky and the rain mostly held off until the afternoon.

We just spent the day walking all over the city. We loosely followed a couple of self-guided walking tours from the Lonely Planet guide, and we very unintentionally found ourselves on a tour of the different churches in the city. Churches definitely tend to be some of the coolest architectural features in cities, but it made me laugh just how many of them we saw in a single day.

We started in the St-Jean Baptiste neighborhood outside the walled part of Quebec City. 

We popped into this old church that's been converted to a public library. I obviously thought this was the coolest thing we saw all day. 

All those library books surrounded by beautiful stained glass. 

We also wandered through St-Roch, which is definitely a more modern part of town, and also happens to be home to the largest church in the city. 

In the afternoon, we made our way back inside the city walls and explored some more. 

We of course saw another church -- the Notre-Dame de Quebec Basilica.

And then we spent more time walking along the water just taking in the views just as it started to rain. 

We popped into a pub to warm up and dry off. One thing I loved about Quebec was that almost all the bars we went to had hot chocolate on the menu -- and this one had a "bowl" of hot chocolate on the menu.

Perfect for a cold rainy day!

Monday was our last full day, and the only day we were expecting to see the sun. But then instead of the sun, we got snow and crazy wind!

We took a tour of the Citadel, an active military base of the only French speaking regiment in the Canadian military, in the morning and it was mostly outside. I was glad I had worn many, many layers. 

In the afternoon we took a boat ride across the St. Lawrence River. We had big plans to stop at a microbrewery on the other side for lunch and some poutine, but the brewery was closed! 

So instead we climbed up this massive staircase to enjoy the view of the Quebec skyline.

These big staircases were super common throughout the city. Quebec is built on a massive cliff and these staircases, elevators and funiculars allow people to go between the upper and lower parts of town.

Stairs connecting St-Jean Baptiste and St-Roch.

Elevator connecting those same two neighborhoods

Funicular connecting upper and lower old town

And now we're back home and my legs are appreciating the fact that DC does not require nearly as much climbing to get around!

Oooops another month that I forgot to do a book recap, so I'm coming in today with a two-month recap. 

These were a good couple of months of reading with a mix of thrillers, lighter fare and some good nonfiction. Also I read my friend's first book in September and it was great. There is truly nothing cooler than holding a book in your hand that a friend wrote.

September Reads

Four Stars

A Death on W Street: The Murder of Seth Rich and the Age of Conspiracy by Andy Kroll
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a friend's first book, and I was incredibly excited to read it. Living in DC, I knew bits and pieces of the story surrounding Seth Rich's murder and the wild conspiracy theories that grew out of it. But Andy's book offers more than just a retelling of the events. It looks deeply at how our society got to a place where conspiracy theories can so easily thrive, sucking people in and taking on a life of their own. Through Seth's story, Andy explores the harm this does not only to democracy and society at large, but through the pain it inflicts on private, every day people, who were just living their lives and grieve the loss of their son. Parts of this book enraged me. Parts frustrated me. And that's all a credit to Andy's writing. He's a talented story-teller, and his years of experience as an investigative journalist shine through in this book.

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My book club read this as a follow up to reading The Giver a few months earlier. It was good, though I liked the first one better. I am curious to see how the author rounds out the series though in the remaining books. This book focused on a new character in a different, but similarly restrictive world, and I'm looking forward to how those worlds will collide in later books.

The Counselors by Jessica Goodman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was just the book I needed after finishing a heavier book. It's a YA thriller and follows three girls returning as counselors at the summer camp they've all attended since they were 8 years old. This year, things have changed a bit and the girls, who never kept secrets from each other, are all hiding things. As several of those secrets come to the surface, the girls strive to figure out what's going on while not blowing up their entire friendship.

Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book started a little slow for me, but about a quarter of the way in, I couldn't put it down. Jen looks out her front window one night in October and sees her son stab a stranger. After he's arrested, and Jen returns from the police station, she falls asleep only to wake up the day before the murder happens. Each day she keeps going further and further back in time, trying to put together the pieces of why her son stabbed a man she doesn't know. Once this book really got going, I was super into it and just kept wanting to figure out what threads from the past Jen would need to pull on to try to prevent a murder that happens in the future. If you can suspend belief for a bit, this is a great book!

The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There by Jenna Fischer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a cute and fun reminiscing read about The Office. I loved hearing the perspective of Jenna and Angela about their time on the show, what it was like working with the other actors and some of the behind-the-scenes stories were really funny. Reading the book made me want to go back and rewatch the show.

Three Stars

The Second Husband by Kate White
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I discovered Kate White's thrillers early on the pandemic and tore through several of them. I was eagerly looking forward to this new book, but I couldn't stand the main character. She felt so spineless and was constantly second guessing her gut instincts. So instead of digging into something more that felt off to her, she just ignored it and risked her own safety. The plot twist was good, but I couldn't get past how much I disliked the main character.

October Reads

Five Stars

The Displacements by Bruce Holsinger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I just want to talk to everyone about this book. It's the story of the first-ever (fictional) category 6 hurricane that completely destroys parts of Florida. The book is told from the prescriptive of different characters impacted by the storm -- wealthy people who have just lost everything, children living in FEMA shelters, and FEMA workers focused on response and recovery. A portion of my job deals with hurricane response and the author did such a great job in the parts of the book that covered the political fights over how different things are talked about. The part about a political appointee fight for years to be the first to designate a storm as a category 6 felt so spot on.

The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was one of my favorite Elin Hilderbrand books, and I maybe felt especially kind toward it because it was one of her earliest books, but somehow I hadn't yet read it even though I'd read all the others. This is the story of an exclusive Nantucket restaurant -- both the patrons who visit and the staff that work behind the scenes, including an elusive chef that refuses any media attention.

Four Stars

Nothing More to Tell by Karen M. McManus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was light and fun and perfect for some pre-Halloween witchy vibes. A heart broken witch curses her ex when she's 19. She thinks it's a joke and a way to mend her broken heart. Fast forward many years later, he's back in town and magic is going awry. In her attempt to fix the curse, the two witches are thrown back together and sparks fly.

Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Karin Slaughter's books make great audio books, and I listened to this for most of my drive down to South Carolina. It kept me interested the way time. I love the way Karin Slaughter can weave a mystery from the past into a mystery from the present and always have them tie together in creative ways.

The Last to Vanish by Megan Miranda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A journalist goes missing in a small North Carolina town while he is investigating a string of disappearances that happened there over the years. When his brother comes to town to determine what really happened, it kicks up some feelings with the locals. Told from the perspective of a woman who works at the local inn where many of the missing have disappeared from, this is another fun and fast read thriller that I've come to expect from Megan Miranda.