01 The Pull of the Stars
Set in Ireland in 1918, The Pull of the Stars follows a nurse, Julia, doctor, Kathleen, and a young volunteer, Bridie, over the course of three days as they work desperately to help both the women giving birth and those suffering from the devastating new flu at an understaffed hospital.
Is it appealing to read about a pandemic during a pandemic? We shall see.
Donoghue weaves a good amount of fact into this story--Kathleen Lynn was a real, formidable figure--and the author of Room certainly knows how to craft a story of survival and of finding hope in the most dire situations.
02 Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating
Josh and Hazel are college friends. He's fresh from a devastating heartbreak and she's zany and free-spirited. He's calm and collected, and she's uninhibited. So naturally they'd keep setting each other up on blind dates with other people as they stand by for each other as friends.
This is a promising read in the #lightfiction category, a genre that's been working well for me during Pandemic Times. I loved the authors' (Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings write together under the pen name Christina Lauren) book Autoboyography but did not feel as strongly about Love and Other Words.
I'm listening to this as an audiobook.
03 Hench
I'm so in love with this book so far, I'm going to be heartbroken if it doesn't hold up.
Anna does data entry and works boring temp jobs...for villains. It's not like she's in the line of fire or taking part in dastardly plots. She sits behind a computer, she needs the steady paycheck--and she's got a grudging respect for the bad guys who are paying her.
When she's unexpectedly involved in a violent clash of good and evil and is injured by a gallingly shiny superhero, she doubles down on her contempt for the good guys and her annoyance at how others see them as infallible when they're far from blameless.
Anna's flair for moving around information might be able to teach some of these golden boys and girls a lesson--and it just might get her out from behind the desk for some old-fashioned battling too.
I'm reading this one courtesy of NetGalley and William Morrow; it's scheduled for publication on September 22.
What are you reading now?
Historical fiction, light fiction, and fantasy/science fiction is the wacky concurrent combo working for me right now.