Bookworm has reached another milestone!!  200 books off her Toppling Book Pile!!! While she's certainly read more than 200 books since the inception of our blog, she has posted 200 book reviews here on our blog!  Congrats!!!

    The Book of Two Ways - Jodi Picoult                                                            (                           (Newest)   

#monopolychallenge -  Community Chest - favorite author

I am sorry to say that this was a disappointing book for me. I enjoy Ms.Picoult's writing but this one seemed to be written for a different audience. A more educated audience in the science of Egyptology.  It was interesting to learn about the history of Egypt and hieroglyphics but it really went over my head most of the time.

Then the love story aspect ,  really Jodi.  Way to romancey  for me..  Then the death doula part, while interesting ,was difficult for me because of my mom's death not to long ago.   There is Ms. Picoult's signature twist at the end, more confusing that thought provoking.

Goodreads:

Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein. She's on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: prepare for a crash landing. She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind. The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband, but a man she last saw fifteen years ago: Wyatt Armstrong.

Dawn, miraculously, survives the crash, but so do all the doubts that have suddenly been raised. She has led a good life. Back in Boston, there is her husband, Brian, her beloved daughter, and her work as a death doula, where she helps ease the transition between life and death for patients in hospice.

 

 The Black Angel by John Connolly

Monopoly Book Challenge - Pacific Avenue - A book by an author whose first or last initial can be found in "PACIFIC"
Series

After reading as far as I could in the Lady Darby series I returned to the John Connolly series starring Charlie Parker. This is a series that Bookworm and I started during our road trips, primarily on the 20+ hour drive to Florida every year. We no longer do that trip and well, with the pandemic we are doing no trips, sadly.

This one (5th in the series) was a struggle with the supernatural forces of good and evil. Supernatural/paranormal is not a fav of mine, so its a good thing I still like Charlie Parker and his snarky sense of humor.

There was also a ton of research on, well on a lot of things including the Book of Enoch and the origin of demons and fallen angels, and the Sedlec Ossuary (which I did find fascinatingly creepy!) 

Overall I felt a little lost and overwhelmed with all the details and the supernatural aspects. Here's hoping the 6th book in the series is better!

Summary from Goodreads: When a young woman disappears from the streets of New York City, ties of friendship and blood inevitably draw ingenious, tortured detective Charlie Parker into the search. Soon he discovers links to a church of bones in Eastern Europe, a 1944 slaughter at a French monastery, and to the myth of an object known as the Black Angel -- considered by evil men to be beyond priceless. But the Black Angel is not a legend. It is real. It lives. It dreams. And the mystery of its existence may contain the secret of Parker's own origins.

    The Whisperers - John Connolly                                                                                                     SERIES  

#monopolychallange - Chance - Book with rating higher than 3.0 on Goodreads

This is the 9th in the Charlie Parker series.  I enjoy Charlie and his cases but I do not always enjoy his dealings with the dark spirits of the netherworld .   Anyway.......

Charlie is hired to keep an eye on a guy who may be hurting his girlfriend and other suspicious things about him.  There have also been several suicides of the local veterans that just don't add up.  

Mr. Connolly touches on PTSD, antiquities, smuggling, and of course the dark entities from the netherworld.  Oh,  and The Collector stops in for a visit.  He is a nemesis from previous books. 

Goodreads:

""'Oh, little one, ' he whispered, as he gently stroked her cheek, the first time he had touched her in fifteen years. 'What have they done to you? What have they done to us all?' ""In his latest dark and chilling Charlie Parker thriller, New York Times bestselling author John Connolly takes us to the border between Maine and Canada. It is there, in the vast and porous Great North Woods, that a dangerous smuggling operation is taking place, run by a group of disenchanted former soldiers, newly returned from Iraq. Illicit goods--drugs, cash, weapons, even people--are changing hands. And something else has changed hands. Something ancient and powerful and evil.

      The Island - Heather Graham                     (Oldest on TBR)

#monopolychallenge - Waterworks - on or near water

A nice, easy suspenseful book.

On a weekend camping trip to a nearby island, Beth finds a skull, but when she takes her brother back to show him, it has disappeared.  He questions that it was even a real skull.   Beth becomes very suspicious of all of the other people on the island. Some of the people she knows and some are strangers to her.

After the weekend and Beth is back home on the coast of Florida, someone is stalking her and threatening her to keep quiet about the skull.  

Goodreads:  On a weekend vacation Beth Anderson is unnerved when a stroll on the beach reveals what appears to be a skull. As a stranger approaches, Beth panics and covers the evidence. But when she later returns to the beach, the skull is gone.

Determined to find solid evidence to bring to the police, Beth digs deeper into the mystery of the skull and everywhere she goes, Keith Henson, the stranger from the beach, seems to appear. He claims to be keeping an eye on her safety, but Beth senses other motives. Then a body washes ashore, and Beth begins to think she needs more help than she bargained for. Because investigating is a dangerous game, and someone wants to stop Beth from playing.

 

 How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior

Monopoly Book Challenge - Water Works - Read a book which takes place on/near the water.
Once Upon a Book Club - June 2020
Newest Book on TBR

Cute, cute story!! Its rare to have the protagonist of a novel be an octogenarian, but if they are like Veronica then we need more of them!!

This book makes you want to have a penguin, or at the very least do what you can to save them!!

Summary from Goodreads: A curmudgeonly but charming old woman, her estranged grandson, and a colony of penguins proves it's never too late to be the person you want to be.