Rainy Days With Amanda

 I've been wanting to read Mexican Gothic for whwat seems like a couple of years now. This year, I put it on my Christmas list and was pleasantly surprised when my mother-in-laws gift was just what I wanted! I also decided to start it right away because I've been in a more Victorian/older literature mood and Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia was able to scratch that itch! About the Author Mexican by birth, Canadian by inclination. Cachanilla and Canuck, originally from Baja California, she now resides in Vancouver. She has an MA in Science and Technology Studies from the University of British Columbia. Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the author of a number of critically acclaimed novels, including  Gods of Jade and Shadow  (Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, Ignyte Award),  Mexican Gothic  (Locus Award, British Fantasy Award, Pacific Northwest Book Award, Aurora Award, Goodreads Award), and Velvet Was the Night (fi...

 Hey Ya'll! I'm back with a new book review. So ironically, one of my favorite YouTubers, Abroad in Japan , put out his first book at the beginning of August. It was only fitting that I start this book during my trip to Japan ( read about that here ). I had been hearing about this book from Chris on his podcast for what seemed like a year now, so having it in my hands, I felt super proud of someone that I have never met in person but who's voice I would recognize from a mile away.  About the Author Chris Broad is a British filmmaker and founder of the Abroad in Japan YouTube channel, one of the largest foreign YouTube channels in Japan with over 2.5 million subscribers and 400 million views. Over ten years and two hundred videos, Chris has visited all of Japan's forty-seven prefectures, focusing Abroad in Japan on travel, food and culture. He has also covered contemporary issues through documentaries on the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the Tohoku earthquake and...

MUMENTOUS: Original Photos and Mostly-True Stories about Football, Glue Guns, Moms, and a Supersized High School Tradition That Was Born Deep in the Heart of Texas by Amy J. Schultz Nonfiction / Photo-Driven Memoir / Women’s History / Pop Culture / Texana Publisher: Atmosphere Press Page Count: 178 pages Publication Date: April 25, 2023 Scroll down for a giveaway! The closest you'll ever get to seeing someone actually wear their heart on their sleeve is in Texas, every fall, at the local high school homecoming game. They're called homecoming mums. They are as bodacious as football, as irresistible as a juicy rumor, and as deep as a momma's love. Over a hundred years ago when the custom began, mum was short for chrysanthemum, a typical corsage that boys gave to girls before taking them to the big football game. But through the decades, mum went from a simple abbreviation to a complicated shorthand for an eye-popping tradition that's as ingrained in the culture as it is c...

  THE FIFTH DAUGHTER OF THORN RANCH by Julia Brewer Daily Women's Fiction / Contemporary Western / Family Saga Publisher: Admission Press Pages: 322 pages Publication Date: November 1, 2022 SCROLL DOWN FOR GIVEAWAY! Emma Rosales is the heiress of the largest ranch in Texas—The Thorn. All the responsibilities of managing a million acres now fall into her fifth-generation hands. A task Emma could handle with her eyes closed…if The Thorn were any ordinary property. The Thorn is home to many things. Clear, cloudless skies. Miles of desert scrub and craggy mountains. A quiet disrupted only by whispers of the wind. And an ancient web of secrets won’t let Emma out alive without a fight. The Fifth Daughter of Thorn Ranch is a family saga as large as the state of Texas. First off, I was so excited when I saw that Julia Daily had a new book out. I read and reviewed her first book, No Names to Be Given , and was immediately sucked into her story and characters. After rea...

 Hello everyone! It's been a few months since I've written a book review. It's been a busy season in my life, with traveling, work picking up, and the holidays creeping up. I'm happy to share that I have been reading, just a little slower and I was reading a pretty big book.  I was attracted to Jane Eyre as I was walking into a Half Price Books with nothing specific in mind and saw this beautiful cover. I opened it up and while I'm not a big earlier than 1930's book fan, I did find Jane Eyre to be intriguing and I found myself wanting to read it. So here I am and here's my full review on Charlotte Bront ë 's Jane Eyre .  About the Author Charlotte Bronte was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became English Literature classics. She attended school at Roe Head in January 1831 and left at the age of 15 to teach her sisters,  Emily  and  Anne , at home, returning in 1835...

  AMONG THE INNOCENT by MARY ALFORD Genre: Fiction / Christian / Suspense Publisher: Revell Date of Publication: June 7, 2022 Number of Pages: 304 pages   Scroll down for Giveaway!   When Leah Miller's entire Amish family was murdered ten years ago, the person believed responsible took his own life. Since then, Leah left the Amish and joined the police force. Now, after another Amish woman is found murdered with the same MO, it becomes clear that the wrong man may have been blamed for her family's deaths.   As Leah and the new police chief, Dalton Cooper, work long hours struggling to fit the pieces together in order to catch the killer, they can't help but grow closer. When secrets from both of their pasts begin to surface, an unexpected connection between them is revealed. But this is only the beginning. Could it be that the former police chief framed an innocent man to keep the biggest secret of all buried? And what will it mean for ...