I took a little reading hiatus there for a bit but finally feeling it again. I go in and out of reading phases. Sometimes, I spend more time cooking, watching movies, and other times I wake up, and all I want to do is read. Lately, I’ve been reading in the morning and right before bed. It really does help me sleep better at night!

When I was at the airport last week, I picked up This Time Next Year to have something to read on the plane since I forgot my book in the car. Sometimes, it takes me a few chapters before I’m hooked, but this book sucked me in. I was surprised since it was not my typical go-to genre, but it was so cute! I ended up reading almost half of the book on the flight up there, which is rare for me since I’m easily distracted on planes. I found myself relating in many ways to the main character. It’s funny how a scenario so different from your own can somehow match up to similar emotions that you’ve been feeling.

This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens

Minnie Cooper knows two things with certainty: that her New Year’s birthday is unlucky, and that it’s all because of Quinn Hamilton, a man she’s never met. Their mothers gave birth to them at the same hospital just after midnight on New Year’s Day, but Quinn was given the cash prize for being the first baby born in London in 1990—and the name Minnie was meant to have, as well. With luck like that, it’s no wonder each of her birthdays has been more of a disaster than the one before.

When Minnie unexpectedly runs into Quinn at a New Year’s party on their mutual thirtieth birthday, she sees only more evidence that fortune has continued to favor him. The gorgeous, charming business owner truly seems to have it all—while Minnie’s on the brink of losing her pie-making company and her home. But if Quinn and Minnie are from different worlds, why do they keep bumping into each other? And why is it that each fraught encounter leaves them both wanting more?

A moving, joyful love story, This Time Next Year explores the way fate leads us to the people we least expect—no matter what the odds.

I will be choosing giveaway winners! Leave a comment below telling me which book you’ll be reading this month for a chance to win a Louis Sherry luxury gift box with 24 truffles. These are absolutely delicious and the best chocolates I’ve ever had. Perfect for cuddling up by the fire with and reading a book! 

The One by John Marrs

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner—the one you’re genetically made for.

That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.

Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.” They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others…

A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.

I wasn’t going to add another book, but since I’m only a few chapters away from finishing the first pick, I wanted to add The One by John Marrs. Kyle finished reading it a few months ago and said it was really good. I will be starting it tonight!

I can’t wait to hear what you think of these books!

1. What was the last book you read?
2. What book should I pick for March?

I hope your Wednesday is going well. Such a strange feeling today, am I right? I took a much-needed hiatus today from the computer, went for a walk, played with the dogs, browsed the aisles at Target, and even grabbed a cappuccino at my favorite coffee shop. It’s healthy to escape things that aren’t in your control and things that give you anxiety. One of my favorite things to do lately is read, play the piano, and go on walks. I finally finished my October book picks, and I’m excited to announce the books for November.

I know the next few months will be crazy with the holidays. I am going to promise myself to read two books instead of four. Reading will help me slow down and not get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everything going on.

I’ve wanted to read these books for a while now, and I’m excited to dive in.  I hope you love these books!  

November Book Club Picks Are: 

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Beach Read by Emily Henry

We Were Liars – A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Beach Read by Emily Henry –  Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

Hope you have a good week

Questions for you

1. Do you find yourself busier during November and December?
2. Have you read these books yet?
3. What do you do to relax?

I absolutely loved September Bookclub. It was so fun when I’d get messages about the books, and I’m so happy you enjoyed them as much as I did. Honestly, every book in the September club was incredibly hard to put down! I’m lucky that Kyle likes to read as much as I do because we spend our evenings reading together on the back patio, and we even went on a weekend getaway just to sit by the fire and read. With all the crap on T.V. nowadays, a book is the perfect escape.

Don’t forget to enter this month’s giveaway!  I wanted to keep the books a bit spookier this time because it’s October! I only chose three books for this month’s list because it’s a busy month for me and I know adding another book will put me behind on projects. If you’re looking for a fourth book, maybe try some of my recent favorites! Or if you missed any of September’s books, check those out!

some recent favorites:
The Delima
Where The Crawdad’s Sing
Someone We Know
The Great Alone
The Invention of Wing

October Book Club Picks Are:

The Good Demon

The Sun Down Motel

The Heretic’s Daughter

The Good Demon

The Good Demon: It wasn’t technically an exorcism, what they did to Clare. When the reverend and his son ripped her demon from her, they called it a “deliverance.” But they didn’t understand that Clare and her demon—known simply as Her—were like sisters. She comforted Clare, made her feel brave, helped to ease her loneliness. They were each other’s Only.

Now, Clare’s only comforts are the three clues that She left behind:
Be nice to him
June 20
Remember the stories

Clare will do anything to get Her back, even if it means teaming up with the reverend’s son and scouring every inch of her small, Southern town for answers. But if she sacrifices everything to bring back her demon, what will be left of Clare?

The Sun Down Motel

The Sun Down Motel: Something hasn’t been right at the roadside Sun Down Motel for a very long time, and Carly Kirk is about to find out why in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.

Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary.

Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.

The Heretic’s Daughter

The Heretic’s Daughter: Salem, 1752. Sarah Carrier Chapman, weak with infirmity, writes a letter to her granddaughter that reveals the secret she has closely guarded for six decades: how she survived the Salem Witch Trials when her mother did not.

Sarah’s story begins more than a year before the trials when she and her family arrive in a New England community already gripped by superstition and fear. As they witness neighbor pitted against neighbor, friend against friend, the hysteria escalates — until more than two hundred men, women, and children have been swept into prison. Among them is Sarah’s mother, Martha Carrier. In an attempt to protect her children, Martha asks Sarah to commit an act of heresy — a lie that will most surely condemn Martha even as it will save her daughter.

This is the story of Martha’s courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.

 I’m so excited to get started on these books! I think that I’ll start with The Heretic’s Daughter first! I’ve been fascinated by the Salem witch trials lately, so I think this will be an excellent place to start.

GIVEAWAY

I want to include a giveaway for the book club as well.  I think reading is absolutely perfect paired with coffee, so I want to do a $30 ($75 for the Instagram winner) Dunkin giveaway for 3 lucky book club members! Now that the Fall treats are out, you can get cozy and start diving into this week’s books with everything pumpkin spice!

To enter, answer one of the following questions below in the comments! There will also be a winner selected from the Instagram Giveaway, so enter there as well Winners will be chosen on Friday, October 9th!

Questions for you!

1. Did you read any of the September Book Club Picks?
2. Which October Book Club book are you going to read?
3. Where is your favorite place to read?

Happy September 1st, and welcome to the very first book club here on Simply Taralynn! I’m so excited to launch this series and hopefully continue to add more options like zoom discussions, video reviews, and in-person local meet-ups when everything is back to normal again. All suggestions are welcome, and I’ve also been working on putting together a newsletter for the book club that will officially launch in October!

This past summer, I’ve been a book worm. I have fun finding new books and love chatting with you all about some of the stories I’ve been reading. A book club has been a popular request, and I decided to just dive into it. There is no curriculum at all, and anyone can join in at any time. I will share 3 to 4 books that I have chosen to read throughout the month and continue to update everyone on how I’m enjoying them in recaps, on Instagram, and will also be writing a follow-up at the end of the month on this blog post. This month, I have chosen four books! Do not feel as if you need to read all of them, but I figured there might be some readers who have already gone through all of my picks, and I wanted to have a few extras available! I usually read about one book a week, and I know this book club will be helping me stay on track with reading. Reading is so important to me because it helps me escape from the television, social media, and allows me to use my imagination and learn a few things that may not pop up on my Instagram feed. When I read more, I feel more relaxed, focused, and creative.

September Book Club Picks Are: 

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins  

The One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London

Eliza Starts a Rumor by Jane L. Rosen

The Guest List by Lucy Foley 

American Dirt

American Dirt: Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable.

Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy—two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.

Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia—trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier’s reach doesn’t extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?

American Dirt will leave readers utterly changed. It is a literary achievement filled with poignancy, drama, and humanity on every page. It is one of the most important books for our times.

Already being hailed as “a Grapes of Wrath for our times” and “a new American classic,” Jeanine Cummins’s American Dirt is a rare exploration into the inner hearts of people willing to sacrifice everything for a glimmer of hope.

It’s crazy how life can change in an instant. I really felt this character’s pain with each page. When I thought things couldn’t get worse for the mother and son duo, it did. My heart was pounding as I read the pages, and I had to hurry up and get through it just to know the ending sooner. So much grief, love, and lightness through the darkest time. This was definitely not my go-to genre, and after the first few pages, I wanted to close the book and quit reading. After feeling the grief from the first few chapters, I started to attach myself to the characters and invest in their search for a safe landing. 

Eliza Starts a Rumor

Eliza Starts a Rumor: It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. When Eliza Hunt created The Hudson Valley Ladies’ Bulletin Board fifteen years ago she was happily entrenched in her picture-perfect suburban life with her husband and twin preschoolers. Now, with an empty nest and a crippling case of agoraphobia, the once-fun hobby has become her lifeline. So when a rival parenting forum threatens the site’s existence, she doesn’t think twice before fabricating a salacious rumor to spark things up a bit.

It doesn’t take long before that spark becomes a flame.

Across town, new mom and site devotee Olivia York is thrown into a tailspin by what she reads on the Bulletin Board. Allison Le is making cyber friends with a woman who isn’t quite who she says she is. And Amanda Cole, Eliza’s childhood friend, may just hold the key to unearthing why Eliza can’t step out of her front door.

In all this chaos, one thing is for sure…Hudson Valley will never be the same.

Funny, romantic, raw, and hopeful, this is a story about being a woman and of the healing power of sisterhood.

I didn’t expect the ending of this book to put me in tears. It was funny, heartwarming, and adventurous. I loved the bond between these struggling strangers that turned into a sisterhood. There are so many struggles in this book that are easy to connect and relate to. A story of empowerment! 

The One to Watch

The One to Watch: Bea Schumacher is a devastatingly stylish plus-size fashion blogger who has amazing friends, a devoted family, legions of Insta followers—and a massively broken heart. Like the rest of America, Bea indulges in her weekly obsession: the hit reality show Main Squeeze. The fantasy dates! The kiss-off rejections! The surprising amount of guys named Chad! But Bea is sick and tired of the lack of body diversity on the show. Since when is being a size zero a prerequisite for getting engaged on television?

Just when Bea has sworn off dating altogether, she gets an intriguing call: Main Squeeze wants her to be its next star, surrounded by men vying for her affections. Bea agrees, on one condition—under no circumstances will she actually fall in love. She’s in this to supercharge her career, subvert harmful beauty standards, inspire women across America, and get a free hot air balloon ride. That’s it.

But when the cameras start rolling, Bea realizes things are more complicated than she anticipated. She’s in a whirlwind of sumptuous couture, Internet culture wars, sexy suitors, and an opportunity (or two, or five) to find messy, real-life love in the midst of a made-for-TV fairy tale. In this joyful, wickedly observant debut, Bea has to decide whether it might just be worth trusting these men—and herself—for a chance to live happily ever after.

OMG – THIS BOOK. I loved it. What a fun and fast-paced book to read. I loved the character Bea so much! Honestly, this book made me want to write to the producers of The Bachelor and tell them to read it. I’d love to see the change in the show just like this book. It was fun reading about a plus-sized fashion blogger who gets on a dating show (like the Bachelor) and the impact she made on the industry. I loved her attitude, realness, and the way she always came out on top!  This is a must-read. 

The Guest List

The Guest List: On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?

---

The guest list had me in chills. I wasn’t sure if the killer was going to be paranormal or one of the wedding guests. I loved how each character had their own voice throughout the book, and the way it all tied together at the end was phenomenal. 

I want to include a giveaway for the book club as well.  I think reading is absolutely perfect paired with coffee, so I want to do a $30 ($75 for the Instagram winner) Starbuck’s giveaway for 3 lucky book club members! Now that the Fall treats are out, you can get cozy and start diving into this week’s books with everything pumpkin spice!

Giveaway

To enter, answer one of the following questions below in the comments! There will also be a winner selected from the Instagram Giveaway, so enter there as well Winners will be chosen on Wednesday, September 9th!

Questions for you!

1. Which book are you most looking forward to this month?
2. Have you read any of the books on the September list?
3. What do you want to see / suggestions for my book clubs?

WINNERS: The blog winners have been announced in the comment replies!! The Instagram winner is @marissadperez

It feels good to be back blogging again. I took a much-needed hiatus the past two weeks to give myself a mindful refresh. Sometimes, you just need some time off to read a good book, watch a few films, and spend time with family. I have missed you all, and I can’t wait to get back in the routine of things. And if you haven’t noticed yet, the blog also had a little refresh of its own! I hope you’re enjoying the new website so far, and new features will be added throughout the next few weeks. I can’t wait to share some projects I’ve been working on like the office makeover (so close to finishing), my latest travel guide, and Fall decor. We had some rosé and treats over the weekend to cheers on the new website! Any excuse to have rosé, am I right? Plus, I found the cutest rosé strawberries that I had to add to the celebration!

I don’t know what has gotten into me lately, but I’ve become a rosé person. Now that it’s summer, all I’m craving is fresh fruit, and fruit just happens to pair well with rosé. I found limited-edition rosé strawberries by Dole at the grocery store and had to give them a try! I was pleasantly surprised by how flavorful they were, definitely worth the hype. Each weekend, I have a glass of rose and dive into my reading list. It’s become something I look forward to most Friday nights.

Reading has been a big part of my routine this summer. Kyle and I have been reading before bed, reading in the morning with coffee, reading on vacation, and even randomly throughout the day while the dogs wrestle in the backyard. I used to have a guilty feeling when it came to reading. I had to make sure the house was spotless, the blogs were kept up with, and everything around me had to be done before I opened a book. I’ve locked that mindset out and have put reading as a priority.

I am excited to announce that I will be starting a mini book club here on the blog. For those that are interested, I will be sharing two or three books at the beginning of each month. It’ll be fun to connect and exchange conversations about the featured books. I’ve considered a monthly zoom chat to hang out and go over books just as if it were a real-life book club. The details will be coming September 1st when I announce the chosen books! If you are looking for some good books to read, this month, I finished the following:

Where the Crawdads Sing
The Great Alone
The Invention of Wings
The Dilemma

To celebrate the new website as well as the launch of the book club coming in September, I wanted to do a fun little giveaway! I will be sending two winners a  September book pick of their choice (coming soon) as well as my favorite relaxation tea and calming candles! All you have to do is leave a comment below telling me what book you have on your reading list!

Questions for you!

1. What book are you currently reading?
2. Are you apart of any book clubs?

Stacey & Kaitlyn are the winners!! Find your comment and please email me to redeem!!