June 2026 Reading

I made good progress on my 20 Books of Summer in June: eight read and reviewed, and I am in the middle of the ninth. My favorite books this month were A Place Beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick, a historical set in England and Normandy during the 12th century, and I, Spy by L.M. Kemp, about an ex-spy who thought she had escaped from a lifetime of espionage, only to be dragged back in unexpectedly.

Suspense/Mystery

The Clairvoyant Countess by Dorothy Gilman #20BOS26-2

Moira Redmond recently wrote about fortune tellers in her Clothes in Books blog, and that got me thinking about a two-book series by Dorothy Gilman that begins with The Clairvoyant Countess. I couldn’t remember if I had read it so I requested it from the library and included it in my 20 Books of Summer.

20 Books of Summer – 2026

The 20 Books of Summer is a reading challenge meant to identify books you've been putting off (in a good way) or to make a dent in your TBR pile. Participants make a pledge to read and review a list of 10, 15, or 20 books during the summer months (typically June 1st through August 31st). 

It was created by Cathy of 746 Books, and is now hosted by Annabel of AnnaBookBel. Here are my 20 books, plus an extra:

My November 2024 Reading

My favorites this month were The Law of Innocence about Harry Bosch’s half-brother, Mickey Haller, accused of murder and forced to defend himself from prison, and Mrs. Hart’s Marriage Bureau, a historical novel set between the wars in Britain. I also enjoyed another book about Orphan X and two books by Joan Aiken for Witch Week 2024 – Night Fall is just as memorable as the first time I read it.

Six Degrees of Separation – from Butter to The Blue Castle

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is a Japanese mystery, Butter by Asako Yuzuki, which I have not read.

Be Mine

For Valentine's Day, I thought I’d look at the last ten books I read with 💙 in the title.  

You're wrong if you think they're all romances:

Hearts in Trim by Lavinia R. Davis (1954) – YA 

Jointly inheriting a book collection leads to romance between Serena “Squeak” Bruce and her high school classmate Cliff.  I have to say this is one of my favorite covers and it does make you immediately want to read the book.   Thank you to Phair who sent me this book from her own collection when I mentioned my mother enjoyed Davis growing up.  But why did those 50s heroines have such dreadful nicknames? Beany Malone, Dinny Gordon, Twink Elliott, and more . . .  

Backwards

A movie that isn't out yet has spawned a book that doesn't exist . . .

"Fireproof" is a movie set for release at the end of the month about a firefighter asked by his father to take a 40-day marriage challenge before divorcing his wife of seven years. The challenge involves reading and following an invented book THE LOVE DARE, "which eventually transforms him and his view of love, marriage, and faith." So test audiences for the movie asked how they could get the book--which didn't exist.

So two ministers in Georgia who had directed and produced the movie, "shut out the world and wrote for several weeks" to create a book "that helps readers learn each day about a unique aspect of the nature of love and offers a 'dare' to help implement that characteristic into their marriage." A publisher has apparently already sold 300,000 copies in advance of the movie's release.

This reminds me of Dorothy Gilman's book The Maze in the Heart of the Castle, which is a story about orphaned teen Colin who must find his way out of the maze. However, Gilman first described this story in her adult novel, The Tightrope Walker, a somewhat wistful standalone in which Amelia Jones begins her own journey of self discovery with references to Maze as being Amelia's favorite childhood story. Gilman must have fallen in love with her own description of Maze, so subsequently wrote it. I always wondered if anyone besides my sisters and me noticed this sequence of events. Gilman is certainly better known for her Mrs. Pollifax books but the others are very good too.