Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 21

"The Warrior's Path" by Louis L'Amour

The Warrior's Path had a much more focused plot than the previous two Sacketts books, which I appreciated.  Kin and Yance Sackett (sons of Barnabas, who was the star of those first books) get word that Yance's wife's young sister has disappeared up in Massachusetts, along with a young woman that people believe to be a witch.  Kin and Yance set off through the wilderness, arrive at the colony where the girls lived, discover nobody is particularly inclined to seek the lost girls, and set off to fi...

Top Ten Tuesday: Indie State of Mind

I love that this week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl focuses on Indie/Small Press/Self-Published Books!  As an author who has published both with the small press and self-publishing models, I am excited to see those get a chance to shine this week.
Although, technically, any press that is not affiliated with one of the "big five" (Penguin Random House, Macmillan, Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, and Hachette Book Group) is considered to be "independently published," I am ...

Join the Classic Children's Literature Party

My blogging friend Carissa is hosting a bookish event this month: The Classic Children's Literature Party!  Carissa says her goal with this event is "that your imagination would be sparked and that you would just feel warm and comfortable and joyful as you proceed through your reads."  Doesn't that sound jolly?
I've got a dozen or so classic children's books on my TBR shelves, so I plan to focus on those for my reading this month.  Being an inveterate mood reader, I don't know exactly what I'll b...

"Nightmare Town" by Dashiell Hammett

You may have noticed this book was in my sidebar for like three months.  That's because I was savoring it.  For three months?  Indeed.  It's a collection of a novella and a lot of short stories by Dashiell Hammett, and I was using it as inspiration while I hammered my way through the first draft of my own 1940s mystery book, Murder Most Foul, which I talked about here on my other blog earlier this week.
I had a great time reading this collection.  My favorites in it were:
+ Nightmare Town, the tit...

"The Black Stallion" by Walter Farley

For several decades, this was my favorite novel.  Although I have now admitted that there are a few other books I now love more than it, this remains in my top ten of absolute favorite books.  I read it aloud to my kids this winter and, although none of them loved it, they did enjoy it.
Alec Ramsay is on his way home to the USA from spending the summer with his uncle overseas when a storm strikes the ship he's on.  Only he and an untamed black Arabian stallion survive the shipwreck.  They both wa...

"Jane of Austin" by Hillary Manton Lodge (again)

This book is such a joy.  It's a retelling of Sense and Sensibility set in the modern world and... please don't throw things at me, but... I like it better than S&S.  I do.  There are multiple characters in this that I like better than their S&S counterparts.  There are plot points and relationship tangles that work better for me here.  And this one has the sweetest service dog.  
I mean, obviously I do like Sense and Sensibility.  I led a chapter-by-chapter read-along of it, after all.  I just l...

Want an ARC?

Do you enjoy YA fantasy with exotic settings and a dash of clean romance?  My friend Charity Bishop is giving away Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) of her new YA fantasy book Night of Wonders.  I'm reading it right now myself, and really enjoying it.  Night of Wonders is set in India, with lots of traditional Indian mythology woven into it.  Here's the official synopsis:

Get lost in a world of wonder and imagination! 
Anik lives and works inside the magical Library, a place where the books whisper to ...

"What Happened to Goodbye" by Sarah Dessen

Did I buy this for $1 from my library's used book sale shelves on a whim?  I did.  Did I savor it for more than a week and wish it could have been longer?  I did.
McLean has been living with her dad ever since her parents' messy divorce a couple years ago.  Her mom has a new husband and twin toddlers to deal with, and McLean wants nothing to do with that.  Instead, she moves with her dad from town to town whenever his job as a restaurant rescuer requires him to move on.  Usually, when she arrives...

"A Very Bookish Easter" by Kelsey Bryant, Abigayle Claire, Sarah Holman, and Kate Willis

It's another Very Bookish Holiday collection!  This springtime anthology was a fast, fun read, and I'm happy to add it to our shelves.
Like the previous books in this series, the four novellas here each revolve around a classic book or story, and retell it a little bit too.
"The Prayer Garden" by Kelsey Bryant revolves around The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  In it, a young woman with uncertain ideas about God and Christianity moves into her grandmother's old house to take care of it ...

Top Ten Tuesday: Be Kind, Rewind

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is "Rewind: pick a previous topic that you missed or would like to re-do/update."  My pick is a prompt from July of 2018: Books That Are Linked to Specific Memories/Moments In Your Life. 

I link memories to objects.  This is one reason I own so many physical copies of books -- reading one over again often brings back the memories of the previous time(s) I read that book.  Of course, a lot of books just remind me of sitting on my couc...