Posted on by Maureen · 2 Comments

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Rainbow Rowell is one of my favorite authors. I first fell in love with her books when I read Fangirl, and I was equally captivated by Landline. I had purchased Attachments during an Audible sale, and I recently got around to listening to it.

Attachments is the turn of the century (1999-2000) story of a young man named Lincoln. He’s shy, and a little socially awkward, and he works in IT for a newspaper. His responsibilities include monitoring the employees’ email for anything inappropriate. The correspondence between Beth and Jennifer, two of his coworkers regularly lands in his filters. Lincoln knows that he shouldn’t continue to read the emails, and he should either report them for personal correspondence during work hours or ignore them because they aren’t actually inappropriate. But he doesn’t do either of those things- he continues to read the emails, and as he does, he realizes that he genuinely cares about what the ladies are talking about, and he begins to fall in love with Beth. Read more

Posted on by Maureen

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

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As soon as I heard about The Royal We, I knew I wanted to read it. I submitted a request through the library network, and it arrived quickly. I started to read, and I was enjoying myself so much that I decided to use an Audible credit to purchase the audiobook version.

The Royal We is a collaborative effort from Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, the women behind the fashion blog Go Fug Yourself. This is the story of Rebecca Porter, who is preparing for her wedding to Prince Nicholas at the beginning of the book. There is an official biography, but Bex assures us that it is highly inaccurate. She then proceeds to tell the reader the real story behind the courtship. Seven years ago, Bex was an American college student spending a semester abroad at Oxford University. She ends up living on the same hall as Prince Nicholas, third in line to the British throne. They bond over a weird American soap opera and American junk food, and they fall in love, even though neither of them intended for that to happen. Their relationship is often tumultuous, and involves an ensemble cast of characters including Bex’s twin sister Lacey, Nick’s wild brother Freddie, stuffy aristocrat Lady Bea, and more. Read more

Posted on by Maureen

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

I am a big fan of many of Stephen King’s books. I prefer the ones that are not horror stories, like 11/22/63 and novellas like The Body and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. When Entertainment Weekly published an excerpt from King’s latest novel Finders Keepers, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. I placed a hold through the library network, but so did 186 other people. Luckily, I stopped at the library last Friday and found the book on the special 7 Day Checkout shelf. These books can only be checked out for a week, and they can’t be renewed. I had several books in my reading queue, but I bumped Finders Keepers to the top. Thanks to my children being distracted by the video game Splatoon, and a mini road trip to the Lacrosse Jamboree an hour away, I was able to finish Finders Keepers in a couple of days.

Finders Keepers opens in 1978, with reclusive author John Rothstein’s home being invaded by three masked bandits. They are not only after his money; Morris Bellamy, the ringleader, is convinced that the aged author has a vast collection of unpublished writings. The hunch is correct- they load the Moleskine notebooks into a trunk, and Bellamy shoots Rothstein before leaving.

Thirty-five years later, a teenager named Pete Saubers discovers the trunk with the notebooks and cash. They have gone untouched for all those years because Morris Bellamy has been in prison, but for a different crime than Rothstein’s murder. But then Bellamy is released, and he goes back to his home (that the Saubers family is now living in) and when he realizes that his treasures have been stolen, he is determined to recover what (in his mind) is rightfully his, no matter the cost. Read more