“The Witch Elm” by Tana French. It wasn’t without faults but I enjoyed it a great deal anyway.
@garland – “Educated” made me have uncharacteristically – for me! – good feelings about BYU : 
@Bromfield2 as a self-claimed Austen fan, I didn’t like “eligible” at all. It lacked all the charms and wits of P&P, the modern day retelling does not work for me at all.
@4kids4us I think THIF should be made into a movie!
@Mary13 Thank you for the head’s up on The Heart’s Invisible Furies! My sister says it’s her favorite book ever. I’ve been waiting for it on the Libby app for months - less than $2.00 and I can read it at my leisure.
The Heart’s Invisible Furies for Kindle is $1.99 right now.
I found the first third of Charlie Jane Anders’ All the Birds in the Sky incredibly annoying mostly because the parents were so unbelievably awful, but after that I found it an intriguing world where magic and science are competing to save the world. Our two protagonists are at turns lovable and irritating, but their hearts are in the right place.
I also read the Jane Smiley trilogy beginning with Some Luck that was referenced here. I thought the first book was so outstanding and interesting but as the series went on, there seemed to be a rush to get through all the events of the 20th Century that happened as the century moved along… a character in Vietnam, a character in the Jim Jones church, a character in 9/11, a character in the farm crisis, a character in the financial crisis, a character in Iraq and so on and so on and as the family grows and expanded trying to deal with so many story lines and how they get resolved…
I love Jane Smiley’s writing. But I agree @bookmama22 – pretty incredible that so many major events of the century touched various family members.
I almost hesitate to recommend this book, but I stayed up till 1:00 AM to finish it. I read it all in one big gulp.
“The Cabin at the end of the World.”
It’s bloody and apocalyptic and gruesome. If you don’t like being scared, don’t read it. But if you like well-written horror that COULD be true and just won’t let go…
@scout59, my sister read that and liked it. I know she read it because she took a picture of the book, which she was holding up next to her ex-husband’s house, located in a remote rural area.
Just funished and was absorbed by “Fly Girls” by Kevin O’Brien. It was very interesting to read about the decade between 1926-1936 and national air races. Thankfully, planes are made MUCH safer now than back in the day. The pilots were very brave!
Very much enjoyed “Before We Were Yours” by Lisa Wingate. Based on true events.
Just finished The Fifth Season. I had a hard time getting into it - using the second person and the present tense was doubly off-putting, but luckily not everything was in second person and eventually I was able to ignore the weird tenses and just enjoy the story. I went back an reread the prologue when I finished the book - and it made a lot more sense. I did not see the twist coming at all.
@mathmom - would you recommend it? I like some fantasy but it’s not my primary “go to” for a book.
Oh yeah, it’s definitely one of the best books I’ve read in the last six months. Warning though, if you like it, it’s the first of a trilogy. It’s as much sci-fi as fantasy for what that is worth. If you search the thread there were some other comments about it in January IRC.
SOAR: The Breakthrough Treatment for Fear of Flying. Seriously, this book helped me get on a plane (and stay relatively calm) for the first time in 28 years. I highly recommend it for anyone who is scared of flying, worried about airplane safety, suffers from severe anxiety, phobias, etc. It addresses two distinct sets of issues - knowledge of how planes work, and knowledge of how your body reacts to the unknown and things it perceives as threats.
I’m on the 3rd book of the Fifth Season trilogy. It grew on me as I read. I think I liked book 2 better than 1. Liking 3 so far, about 100 pages into it.
@intparent, I had the reverse reaction to the series, to the point that I didn’t finish the last volume. But I know that I am in the minority among those I know who have read it.
I just finished Careless Love, the most recent Peter Robinson Inspector Banks, a series I have been reading for a long time. I was nonplussed because the last sentence was like the beginning of a new chapter but it was the end of the book. How long do I have to wait?
I just read “Where the Crawdads Sing” and really enjoyed it. There are some things that were far fetched in it in my opinion but very interesting read.