What says the USA’s 250th birthday holiday week more than Haiku? 😂😅♥️😍🌿✨ Look for photos and haiku this week! I wanted to try something different. I am also planning a no public library borrowing for the month of July. This doesn’t include what I have already on my pile or on hold. 😂😅 Just no new. I’m planning on reading what I have! ♥️🥰🌿✨📚 Any exciting July plans or goals? Creatively? Personally?
I’d love to hear!
Happy Saturday, folks!
June is coming to a close and with that I realized that I have another quarters reading favorites to pick! I’m grouping them by loose genre for your convenience!
♥️🌿✨CLASSICS✨🌿♥️
♥️🌿✨CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHICAL✨🌿♥️
♥️🌿✨COZY MYSTERY✨🌿♥️
1. Secrets of Shakespeare’s Grave and Tower of the Five Orders by Deron R. Hicks ~ delightful adventures involving a brother and sister trying to help their father save the family publishing company! This is set between Georgia, USA and London, England! Clues, puzzles, mysterious graves, Shakespeare, bookish etc! Just so fun!
2. Gladwynne Grant Gets Her Footing and Takes the Stage by Lisa R. Howeler ~ I absolutely love Gladwynne and her grandmother! Gladwynne comes to live with her grandmother and gets a job as a reporter for the small town newspaper. The mysteries and scrapes Gladwynne finds herself in are intriguing! I love the wonderful town’s people who made these two cozies so sweet! Light faith elements. I have the third on my kindle, I can’t wait to continue!
✨🌿♥️MYSTERY/THRILLER♥️🌿✨~
1. Quietly in Their Sleep by Donna Leon ~ A great installment of this long police mystery series following Venice police detective Guido Brunetti! He follows his nose in this one and uncovers corruption in a religious order! Very creepy and I absolutely loved Guido’s family, coworkers, and the Venice setting. These are gritty with explicit crime violence, fyi.
2. The Crown Conspiracy by Connie Mann ~ I found this one free in my Audible Plus catalog! A morally gray Robin Hood art forger type 🤣, Sophie returns stolen art work to rightful owners by stealing it herself and leaving behind convincing forgeries! The money funds her and her best friend’s rescue group getting women and children out of trafficking. Sound weird? It gets even stranger! 😂 A missing royal painting shows up that has far reaching implications. Lisa and Sophie find themselves running for their lives! A secretive group of women show up to help! Charlie’s Angels anyone? 🤣🙃 This was a bit far-fetched and convoluted, but I ate the audiobook up! 😅♥️ Heavy violence, just fyi.
♥️🌿✨FANTASY/SCI-FI✨🌿♥️~
🌿♥️✨HISTORICAL✨♥️🌿~
✨🌿♥️NONFICTION ♥️🌿✨~
1. Homeschooling: You’re Doing Right by Just Doing It by Ginny Yurich ~ Slow start (again) for me but I grew to love this former public school teacher’s thoughts and evidence on the benefits of homeschooling. Reassuring and encouraging!
Whew! 😅 ♥️ That’s a lot! Hopefully, you will find something for yourself or your family that you’d like to check out! Happy Reading!
I’m loosely participating in five? July specific Booktube Readathons! I really enjoy just marking off prompts! 📚✅
I decorated some of my July pages ahead in my to-do pocket Moleskine because there’s some travel and family stuff going on. I usually decorate this one the day of use because it’s so small, but I don’t pack all my journaling supplies when going on trips! I especially love the Jane Austen stickers I saved for the start of Jane Austen July! 😍♥️🌸
Deck-a-TBR-a-Thon! Summerween! Private Eye July! Jane Austen July! Zoom in for Prompts, if interested! 😅📚📚📚
These are some summer long prompts! I made a great dent in them in June!
Two June Read-a-Thons that I had a lot of fun with! I just read what I’m in the mood for and make them fit mostly, but I do tailor a few of my choices depending on topic. Read a couple American Revolution type books with my kids etc.
June Reading Journal pages almost full!
I purchased coffee stickers and cute yellow bakery type washi so my July theme is Yellow Coffee & Flower Shop! 🤪😅😍💛🤎💛🤎💛
VERY ambitious health/mental/spiritual/relational goals for July! 🙃😱😂
What are you creating lately? I so enjoy working in my journals.
~
I found a new-to-me-blogger Lisa at Boondocks Ramblings that I’m enjoying and am joining her and the host, That Artsy Reader Girl for Top Ten Tuesday!
I’m an extreme mood reader, but will make heaps of hopeful piles! Many of these are rereads or books on my 50 books by 50 list! I’m in a cozy, domestic fiction mood with a side of nonfiction and a vague feeling of something else reading mood. 😅🤪😎
4. The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge ~ I’m due for a reread of this beautiful story of an older woman moving to an inherited house in the countryside and asking herself if she has ever truly been living.
5. The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery ~ been craving a reread of this one . If you felt you had a short time to live, how would you live your life? Valency Sterling has lived a stifling existence up to this point and jumps at the chance to buck against it!
6. Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery ~ yes, another Maud book! I’m really leaning into the domestic, cozy fiction. Young Emily Starr is taken in by aunts when her beloved father passes away. Her writer’s soul aches with growing pains and trying to find a kindred spirit in her new situation. I’m finally feeling ready to really dig into my reread of this sadder trilogy.
7. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh ~ this is for my in-person book club! We are all busy moms so reading it slowly, but so much to discuss on fading English aristocracy, religion, family and societal pressures.
8. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot ~ this is a book from my 50×50 list and my friend who I trust implicitly with book recommendations said it’s a good summer read! I don’t really know what this is about but looking forward to trying another Eliot!
9. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney ~ I’ve been hoping to read this for a long time and the Booktube reading event Jane Austen July would be perfect. I’m much slower at nonfiction, so we’ll see if I can get to it!
10. Habits for a Sacred Home by Jennifer Pepito ~ I’ve been interested in checking out this home educating title for awhile and am looking for a title to read with our homeschool mom’s group this autumn!
~These are just a few of the ones capturing my attention currently! What about you? What books are on your stack this summer? 🌞✨☕️📚♥️😍
Happiest First Day of Summer and Father’s Day! I’m over here at Hearth Ridge enjoying family, sunshine, flowers, and an Anne of Avonlea reread. Church and feasting, too! God is good! ✨
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Happy Tuesday! I’m here to wrap up this Booktuber reading challenge. You can still participate by picking and choosing what books you are reading fulfill the prompts! I don’t follow the monthly delineation because I’m a mood reader, mostly. Small confession: {whispers} Only 3 of these titles were actually on my physical/Kindle shelf! The rest were library check-outs. So I ‘failed’ on the reading my shelf. Oh well! All in good fun!😂🤓
Here’s the prompts!
Title includes an article ~
A Dark Night’s Work by Elizabeth Gaskell ~
The first half of this story was so dark and depressing. Our main female character gets caught up in covering up a crime. The guilt, fear, and shame are palpable as she barely moves through life. The last 1/4th of the book was better, a bit more hope, but wow, not my favorite from my favorite Victorian author.
Three or More Objects (on cover) ~
The Labors of Hercules Beale by Gary D. Schmidt ~
This was a lovely story of two brothers working through their grief due to the loss of their parents. They are navigating their new relationship and trying to keep the family greenhouse afloat. Hercules transfers to a new school and a strict new teacher challenges him in ways that truly help him grow! Schmidt’s books are fantastic in a rip-your-heart-out-and -put-it-back together way! I also love Wednesday Wars by this author.
Weapon on Cover ~
Dawn of Wonder by Jonathan Renshaw ~ A beautiful classic quest fantasy with an underdog main character! Aedan and his new found family he gathers truly grow in character and love! This was so amazing! Satisfying ending even though sequel never was released due to the authors health.
Title Includes a Conjunction ~
For Whom the Book Tolls by Laura Gail Black ~ Gal inherits her uncles antique bookshop in this cozy mystery. Unfortunately, a terrible secret awaits her as she wakes up the first morning! Suspicion is aimed at her surrounding a past false accusation. This had an old mansion, treasure, and an old diary as part of the story!
Includes a Place~
Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine ~ Space-punk pirate ships between England and colonized Mars. I loved the main characters and this zany adventure. The crab-like Martians cracked me up! Pure fun! 🤩
Title with Five or More Words~
Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time by Michael Perry ~ a beautiful memoir about life & death, philosophy, small town Wisconsin. This was written so well and so true to relationships and culture in the Midwest. Highly recommend with the caveat of some sad explicit emergency situations and descriptions.
Has a Map ~
The Will of the Many by James Islington ~ Roman-like world, epic fantasy with deep themes of love and sacrifice for a son who is driven by revenge for a beloved father. Highly recommend!
Water ~
Dead in the Water by Denise Swanson ~
I thought this was a cozy, but it turned out a bit grittier and with adult themes. I really loved the husband/wife duo in the Chief of Police, Wally and his wife Skye, psychologist. They are expecting their first child and a tornado disaster causes havoc to their small town. A murder, family issues, and the town rebuilding/clean up bring them together.
Animal ~
Cloaked in Beauty by Karen Witemeyer ~
This was a deeper Red Riding Hood retelling. I loved the kindness and love the main female character lived and the Grandmother was awesome! A bit heavier on romance, but wonderful characters and an unique take on this story! I loved the wolf dog sidekick, too!
Bookish~
Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine ~ This is such a unique premise! The Library of Alexandria is the center of all knowledge and special librarians are trained to care for it and guard the knowledge. The new batch of trainees are a mixed bag and full of secrets including Jess our main character. The students uncover corruption at the highest levels. I loved this story and the characters. Unfortunately, a bit of a sneering attitude towards traditional morality, so be aware. Nothing explicit except fantasy violence, so far. I hope to continue with the 3rd in the series soon!
Transportation ~
Hearse and Buggy by Laura Bradford ~
Cozy mystery set in Amish community. I love the bed & breakfast and main characters aunt! This was a little slow and repetitive, but I may return if I want a gentle, quiet mystery. I loved the ex-Amish police detective!
True or False ~
The Secret of Honeycake by Kimberly Newton Fusco ~ if anything, read this story for the exquisite writing. Hurricane is our main character and she finds her life in upheaval when she is sent to live with her aunt and employee. This books deals with grief, chronic illness, loneliness, found family, traditions, carving a life for oneself out of a whole new experience. The Great Depression, class, and PTSD touch Hurricane and her new friends lives in a big way. I loved the ‘butler’ character in this story! This is very slow but so sweet and poignant.
How ‘bout you? Do you have any recent reads in these categories? Do you participate in bingo boards or reading challenges? We love them here! 😍✨🤩Happy Reading! 📚♥️🌿
I’ve enjoyed Jessica’s blog for awhile now and I saw she was joining in a bookish blog hop about our 2026 reading! I used to blog hop a lot and really enjoyed linking up with others over a common topic. 😍 I’m joining her at Words & Peace for this reading meme reflecting about your first six months of reading.
Instructions from Emma at Words & Peace:
In 2021, Jo at The Book Jotter started hosting the meme Six in Six.
She stopped blogging in 2025, so I have decided to host it myself.What is 6 in 6?
The idea is to look back at the books you have read so far in the six months of this year.
Now, I love plays with numbers, so I’m extending this meme:
you can post any time in July, or as early as 6/6, June 6th.What do you post?
Choose 6 books in 6 categories.
You can come up with your own category, or choose among the following examples (copied from Jo’s blog):
- Six new authors to me
- Six authors I have read before
- Six authors I am looking forward to reading more of
- Six books I have enjoyed the most
- Six books I was disappointed with
- Six series of books read or started
- Six authors I read last year – but not so far this year
- Six books that took me on extraordinary journeys
- Six books that took me by the hand and led me into the past
- Six books from the past that drew me back there
- Six books from authors I know will never let me down
- Six books I must mention that don’t fit nicely into any category
- Six books I started in the first six months of the year and was still caught up with in July
- Six trips to Europe
- Six blogging events I enjoyed
- Six bookish things I’m looking forward to
- Six Espionage or Historical Novels I enjoyed
- Six Cool Classics
- Six Non-US/Non-British Authors
- Six From the Non-Fiction Shelf
- Six books that didn’t live up to expectations
- Six books that I had one or two problems with but am still glad I tried
- Six books that are related to The Great War or Second World War
- Six bookshops I have visited
- Six books I’ve read in an English translation
- Six books which are better than the film
- Six books which are worse than the film
- Six books that have sport as their major theme
- Six favourite places to read
- Six books read on kindle and then went and bought an actual copy
- Six books I abandoned
- Six classics I have read
- Six books I have read on my Kindle
- Six physical books I have read
- Six book covers I love
- Six book covers that bear no resemblance to the story contained within
- Six books to read to avoid politics
- Six books I have read but not reviewed
- Six books I have read in lockdown
- Six classic mysteries
- Six books about Royalty
- Six pretty book covers
- Six books set in a country other than my own
- Six books that feature a Pandemic
- Six books that are great when self-isolating
- Six books recently added to my wish list
- Six mysteries, thrillers or crime novels NOT by Agatha Christie
- Six books with titles connected to rivers, seas and storms
- Six nature related books
- Six books about Librarians and Libraries
- Six books I really want to buy in the next six months
- Six books that feature a building in the title
My categories I’ve chosen to share about are:
My Six Favorite Genres: (many are a mixture of these below! I’m such an eclectic reader!)
My Six Favorite Reads so far 2026 (so hard to choose!)
My Six Favorite Booktube Readathons So Far this Year: (You can still join these! I don’t follow the monthly prompts, I just fill them in as I go!)
Six New-to-Me Authors
Six Mysteries I have enjoyed :
Six Books I actually Read from My Own Shelf (Physical/Kindle Shelf):
How has your reading year been so far? 📚📖
THE languor of Youth – how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost! The zest, the generous affections, the illusions, the despair, all the traditional attributes of Youth – all save this – come and go with us through life; again and again in riper years we experience, under a new stimulus, what we thought had been finally left behind, the authentic impulse to action, the renewal of power and its concentration on a new object; again and again a new truth is revealed to us in whose light all our previous knowledge must be rearranged. These things are a part of life itself; but languor – the relaxation of yet unwearied sinews, the mind sequestered and self-regarding, the sun standing still in the heavens and the earth throbbing to our own pulse – that belongs to Youth alone and dies with it.
Brideshead Revisited, p. 79
Thinking on this quote as I navigate young adult relationships. I’m prayerfully trying to put myself back into “their age shoes” to respond with love, compassion, and a listening spirit.
Wowsers. 😜😮💨 Nothing like packing up parts of your home for a much needed renovation project to see how terrible of a cleaner/organizer I am! 😧🫨😆
We are, Lord-willing, finally getting our walls properly insulated and a new floor! 😍 Among other things, hopefully! BUT that means taking down my shelves that my FIL built 10 (!) years ago. So LOTS of books have to be packed up!
It’s a great opportunity for me to purge and organize. So many memories with all my children and these wonderful books we thrifted, hunted down, and treasured over the years. 🥲😍🥰
Thank God for motherhood and the opportunity to home educate. 😍🥲♥️
Any projects on your horizon? I hope to update about this and my gardening soon! 🤞🏻♥️
Merrily Gareth ask’d
‘Have I not earn’d my cake in baking of it?
Let be my name until I make my name!
My deeds will speak: it is but for a day.’
So with a kindly hand on Gareth’s arm
Smiled the great King, and half-unwillingly
Loving his lusty youthhood yielded to him.
Gareth and Lynette, Idylls of the King, Tennyson
‘Damsel,’ Sir Gareth answer’d gently, ‘say
Whate’er ye will, but whatsoe’er ye say,
I leave not till I finish this fair quest,
Or die therefore.’
Gareth and Lynette
I’m slowly getting into my buddy read of Idyll’s of the King and I was struck remembering this lovely picture book version of this part of the poem. The Kitchen Knight retold by Margaret Hodges is lovely, largely due to the illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman!
Happy Monday, friends! Our weekly quest has begun! Go forth boldly and without fear! 🙏🏻♥️😍
•listening to and reading •♥️🌿~ we are really enjoying our read aloud of Journey to the River Sea. We’ve kind of poked our head into South America, this year while studying Early American history, explorers, etc. We have some Ancient reading going on and early European too. It’s seems to be opening up ideas and interesting discussions and narrations. 😍
•watching and noticing•♥️🌿
One child mentioned within my hearing how The Divine Comedy 🎭 and the podcast The 100 Days of Dante were coming together with other things. My heart cheered inside. 😅♥️ I’ve noticed that Marvel and the Percy Jackson Series have been being connected to Greek/Norse myths we are always enjoying in our Literature. My older kids enjoy some of the Marvel movies and ALL of my kids have appreciated Percy Jackson’s adventure stories.
Tornado 🌪️/ thunderstorm weather in our area! 😱😬
What have you been listening to, reading, watching, and noticing? I’ve been so interested and pleased with our history adventures this year! Thank You, Lord! ♥️😍📚🥰
“Marilla!” Anne sat down on Marilla’s gingham lap, took Marilla’s lined face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla’s eyes. “I’m not a bit changed-not really. I’m only just pruned down and branched out. The real me-back here-is just the same. It won’t make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life.”
~ Anne of Green Gables
😭😭😭 thinking about my Anne getting MARRIED. 😭😭😭 My oldest son is doing a lot and making decisions, too!! Change and them growing up is in my heart. Hard, but beautiful. ♥️🙏🏻
If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin
Into his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.
~ Emily Dickinson
We are enjoying Dickinson again in our co op currently! She is one of my most favorite poets and I think this above poem IS my favorite by her. 🥲♥️ The prayer over my life. Here is a beautiful print of it for your home.
When Marilla had eaten her lunch Anne persuaded her to go to bed. Then Anne went herself to the east gable and sat down by her window in the darkness alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart. How sadly things had changed since she sat there the night after coming home! Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy with promise. Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but before she went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart. She looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend-as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.”
~Anne of Green Gables, emphasis mine
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us-don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
~Emily Dickinson
Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh flowers on Matthew’s grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingered there until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, with its poplars whose rustle was like a low, friendly speech, and its whispering grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike afterlight-“a haunt of ancient peace.” There was a freshness in the air as if a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The west was a glory of soft, mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. The beauty of it thrilled Anne’s heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it.
~Anne of Green Gables
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 