Rainy Days With Amanda

 Hey everyone! It's already going to be 2021 and that is pretty crazy to me. I like to write these year in reviews like I'm writing in a diary, so I'm going to stick to that format, but try to have a format, you know? Maybe not. Anyways, let's start at the beginning... The Beginning The beginning of this year started off pretty amazing. I spent New Years with my family and was able to see one of my cousins, who has been in Japan the past few years, while we watched illegal fireworks pop all around us in frenzy for the new year. Then, I was able to be in a Mardi Gras parade, that was pretty fun. I was on top of my sales at work and I was rocking it. And my husband and I did a tour of Italy in February where we spent 9 days traveling through Rome, Florence, Milan and Venice and lived out my dream of partaking in Carnival in Venice and Fashion week. ( You can read my post about Italy here ).  But I was pretty happy at the beginning of the year and felt like I was on top of

    RIVER, SING OUT  BY JAMES WADE Categories: Contemporary / Literary Fiction Rural Fiction / Crime Fiction / Coming-of-Age Publisher: Blackstone Publishing Date of Publication: June 8, 2021 Number of Pages: 315 pages        “And through these ages untold, the river did act as the lifeblood of all those things alongside it.”   Jonah Hargrove is celebrating his thirteenth birthday by avoiding his abusive father, when a girl named River stumbles into his yard, injured and alone. The teenager has stolen thousands of dollars’ worth of meth from her murderous, drug-dealing boyfriend, but lost it somewhere in the Neches River bottoms during her escape. Jonah agrees to help her find and sell the drugs so she can flee East Texas. Chasing after them is John Curtis, a local drug kingpin and dog fighter, as well as River’s boyfriend, the dangerous Dakota Cade. Each person is keeping secrets from the others—deadly secrets that will be exposed in violent fas

Hey Everyone! It had been a while since I wrote a Rainy Thoughts. I have recently gotten into making videos on YouTube . If you haven't checked those out yet, I did a whole NaNoWriMo series, so you can check out my videos at Rainy Books With Amanda .  Anyways, NaNoWriMo 2020. It was different. From writing in the middle of a pandemic to writing in the middle of a very intriguing election that took longer than anticipated, it was a whirlwind of stuff. I felt that this NaNoWriMo in particular was the first time I actually had time to write and go through my whole process. If I was stuck, I was able to really think about things, come up with more content, look for advice with my region group and just really focus on my writing. Time is not a luxury that I have had in the past, juggling the challenge and work and even school at one point. This year, I the unfortunate luxury to not be working and having sole focus on my writing. Blessing in disguise as they might say.  This is the year

  THE LOVE NOTE by Joanna Davidson Politano Genre: Christian / Historical Fiction / Romance Publisher: Revell Publication Date: October 20, 2020 Number of Pages: 400 Scroll down for the giveaway! Focused on a career in medicine and not on romance, Willa Duvall is thrown slightly off course during the summer of 1859 when she discovers a never-opened love letter in a crack of her old writing desk. Compelled to find the passionate soul who penned it and the person who never received it, she takes a job as a nurse at the seaside estate of Crestwicke Manor. Everyone at Crestwicke has feelings—mostly negative ones—about the man who wrote the letter, but he seems to have disappeared. With plenty of enticing clues but few answers, Willa's search becomes even more complicated when she misplaces the letter and it passes from person to person in the house, each finding a thrilling or disheartening message in its words. Laced with mysteri

    SIX FEET UNDER TEXAS:   Unique, Famous, & Historic Graves in the Lone Star State (Cemetery Tales Book 1) by TUI SNIDER    Genre: Nonfiction / Texana / History / Texas Travel Publisher: Castle Azle Press Date of Publication: August 15, 2020 Number of Pages: 250 pages  Scroll down for Giveaway! Explore the cemeteries of Texas with Tui Snider as she reveals overlooked history in these fascinating open-air museums.  Along the way, you’ll meet fascinating characters, including a whistleblower who died in suspicious circumstances, an oilman who added a phone line to his mausoleum, and the events that caused two “frenemies” to be chained together in death. CLICK TO PURCHASE! Unique. That is the best word to describe this book. When I first picked up this book, I thought the author was going to talk more so about unique headstones and the stories behind them. While Snider does have some chapters on special headstones, it is