I am often drawn to the First Responder and medical books. I think that’s because my husband was a volunteer First Responder and Fireman and two of my daughters are nurses.
I love the book…it was so interesting. The paramedic that wrote the book shares a lot about his own personal family and also shared his experience living and working in New York when Covid 19 first hit.
If I really wanted a book that wasn’t emotionally taxing to read, this is one I shouldn’t have picked. Oh my. I feel terrible for the Emergency Medical Services personnel that were on the front lines when we all knew so little about the virus.
I was on my Audible account and realized I haven’t been through the free section of books for a bit. I browsed and ended up finding this book, The Survival of Margaret Thomas by Del Howison. It was listed as a western but I love pioneer-type stories and after reading the description I thought I would give the book a chance.
At first, I didn’t like the narrator at all. They seemed slow and a little too folksy but then after realizing that the narrator was performing as if she was the lead character, Margaret Thomas, I started loving her.
I loved the premise of the story…I loved the setting and the plot line. What I didn’t love was the violence. I’m just not very good with cold-hearted people and this seemed a little too much for me.
Overall the story was good…I liked almost everything else about the book except for the violent aspect.
I have told you that with one of my online libraries, I have to put books on a wait list and then I wait and wait. I got my latest book, The Letter from Briarton Park by Sarah E Ladd, from that library.
For these books, I have a shorter loan period. I was getting to the end of the loan period so I listened to this one over the course of two days.
The book was okay…not spectacular…okay.
When I was in high school, I would read a ton of Harlequin Romances…(come on, admit it. Some of you did too.) This is written way better than one of those, but the plot is pretty much the same. I am to the point in my reading life that I want more plot…I want deeper characters. I don’t want the bad guy to be so obvious. I crave a little more meat to my stories.
I have long been a Charles Martin book lover. I remember the exact moment I first heard about him. We had lived in Lawler, Iowa for several years and I got to know the librarian, Jane. She was the perfect librarian and our whole family loved her.
We ended up moving to the neighboring town and she retired so I didn’t see her anymore. Our whole family missed Jane. She knew exactly what books we might like and she always guided us toward them. She was friendly and always interested in our life. She really acted more like an aunt to our kids. As I said, she was the perfect small-town librarian.
A few years passed and I was in the grocery store. I saw Jane and was so happy to see her. We stopped and chatted a bit. One of the things she immediately told me was to read books by Charles Martin. She said they were so good. I told her I was worried that I wouldn’t remember his name as I started fumbling through my purse for a paper and pen to write the name down. She said, “You’ll remember his name is two men’s first names, Charles and Martin.”
I went home, found my first book by him, and have been reading ever since.
This time the book is The Letter Keeper. I want to warn you that this is part of a trilogy. There are three books and this is book #2. If you want to start at the beginning, read The Water Keeper first. You can find it HERE.
I liked the book. But…In the world of Charles Martin books, this series is not in my top ten. I would read the single books first. I love them all. Most of them are very good and read a lot like Nicholas Sparks books.
This book for me is a little too far-fetched. The whole series is actually. The series is deep into sex trafficking and a man named Murphy who rescues people from sex traffickers. I want to completely love the books but the man is superhuman. He can get shot and stabbed and still carry someone to the plane just in time before the building blows up. He will then be hospitalized and have to rehabilitate himself all to do it all over again. I don’t care who you are or how wonderfully well you heal, it’s a little too much for me…yet, I read the books…I love Charles Martin that much.
