My Friday Finds this week are the books I purchased at the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA-LA), Let’s Go Book Clubbing event.  You can check out my post about the event here.  I always love hearing from my followers, so let me know what you found this week.

Here are my Friday Finds:

“Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby, “the kind of pretty it hurt to look at,” has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city–the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village–all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother. When a telegram from her cousin forces her to return home, thirty-year-old Ruby Bell finds herself reliving the devastating violence of her girlhood. With the terrifying realization that she might not be strong enough to fight her way back out again, Ruby struggles to survive her memories of the town’s dark past. Meanwhile, Ephram must choose between loyalty to the sister who raised him and the chance for a life with the woman he has loved since he was a boy.”

“Cress, increasingly resistant to her topic (art in the marketplace), allows herself to be drawn into the social life of the small mountain community. The exuberant local lodge owner, Jakey Yates, with his big personality and great animal magnetism, is the first to blur Cress’ focus. The builder Rick Garsh gives her a job driving up and down the mountain for supplies. And then there are the two Morrow brothers, skilled carpenters, who are witty, intriguing, and married.

As Cress tells her best friend back home in Pasadena, being a single woman on the mountain amounts to a form of public service. Falling prey to her own perilous reasoning, she soon finds herself in dark new territory, subject to forces beyond her control from both within and without.”

 

 

“From Tehran to Los Angeles, The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. is a sweeping saga that tells the story of the Soleymans, an Iranian Jewish family tormented for decades by Raphael’s Son, a crafty and unscrupulous financier who has futilely claimed to be an heir to the family’s fortune. Forty years later in contemporary Los Angeles, Raphael’s Son has nearly achieved his goal–until he suddenly disappears, presumed by many to have been murdered. The possible suspects are legion: his long-suffering wife; numerous members of the Soleyman clan exacting revenge; the scores of investors he bankrupted in a Ponzi scheme; or perhaps even his disgruntled bookkeeper and longtime confidant.”

 

 

 

 

“A. J. Fikry, the irascible owner of Island Books, has recently endured some tough years: his wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and his prized possession–a rare edition of Poe poems–has been stolen. Over time, he has given up on people, and even the books in his store, instead of offering solace, are yet another reminder of a world that is changing too rapidly. Until a most unexpected occurrence gives him the chance to make his life over and see things anew.”

I went to Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago with my fiance and my brother.  I love going to B&N!  Specifically, I love the B&N located at the Americana in Glendale, CA.  It has three stories and I feel like I can get lost in it.  Which wouldn’t be a bad thing for me until my fiance starts wondering where I am.

While my fiance made his way to the Apple store, I probably spent a good hour browsing B&N during the Columbus Day sale and twenty minutes of that was hovering over the “For Sale” items.  You know…the small discounted table with books for like $4-$8.

Did I mention how much I love to be in bookstores?!  There’s nothing better than looking through the aisles of your favorite genre and reading the back covers of books that catch your eye.

So, I wanted to share the four books I bought as my Friday Finds.

“Grace Winter, 22, is both a newlywed and a widow. She is also on trial for her life.

In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying her and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize is over capacity. For any to live, some must die.

As the castaways battle the elements, and each other, Grace recollects the unorthodox way she and Henry met, and the new life of privilege she thought she’d found. Will she pay any price to keep it?

The Lifeboat is a page-turning novel of hard choices and survival, narrated by a woman as unforgettable and complex as the events she describes.”

 

***

“Set in a rural community steeped in silence and denial, So Much Pretty explores all parents’ greatest fear, that their child will be hurt. But it also examines a second, equally troubling question: What if my child hurts someone else?

The disappearance and murder of nineteen-year-old Wendy White is detailed through the eyes of journalist Stacy Flynn and a host of other richly drawn characters, each with their own secrets and convictions.

After Wendy’s body is found, Flynn’s intense crusade to expose a killer draws the attention of a precocious local girl, Alice Piper, whose story intertwines with Wendy’s in a spellbinding and unexpected.”

 What did you find this week?

Guess what today is?  It’s Halloween!  Tonight, my fiancé and I will be sharing a nice meal (that I’m cooking), some special Halloween inspired cocktails, and watching a scary movie.  Shhh…this is a surprise!  He doesn’t know that I’m doing all this for him.

In honor of Halloween, I added the following books to my reading list as Friday Finds.  These were approved Net Galley books.

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“After years as a patrol cop, detective Jocelyn Rush is almost immune to the depravity that stalks the meaner streets of Philadelphia…almost. After saving her three-year-old daughter from a carjacking, she ends up in the emergency room—and discovers that Anita, a former prostitute and acquaintance from her old days on the beat, has been hideously mutilated in a brutal assault.

With the help of her partner and Philadelphia’s Special Victims Unit, Jocelyn discovers that Anita isn’t the first victim of these attacks and it looks like she won’t be the last. When the violence hits closer to home, Jocelyn knows she must do whatever it takes to stop the sadistic attacker—even if it means confronting a terrible secret from her painful past.”

 

 

***

“Nik is an eccentric art student obsessed with painting his dancer girlfriend, Jennifer. When one day she inexplicably disappears, Nik’s world is shattered. Determined to find her, he embarks on a cross-country journey following a scant trail of clues. He doesn’t anticipate how far he’ll have to travel, what he’ll do when he runs out of money, or the fact that an intimidating stranger is looking for Jennifer, too.

Nik and Jennifer fade into the background of their own tale, surfacing now and again like ghosts as the rest of their mysterious story unfolds through a series of chance encounters with intricately linked strangers. An English professor coping with a dying mother, a rebellious teenage girl, a debt-ridden civil servant, a disillusioned ex-anarchist documentary filmmaker, and other disparate characters who encounter the separate couple as they circle one another in a tentative dance.

I hope that everyone has a safe and fun Halloween.  Let me know what books you found this week.