Welcome Autumn 2019!

Happy Monday and Happy Fall! 

It's here at last, the most wonderful time of the year. :) 'Tis the season of bright-colored leaves, pumpkin spice everything, hayrides, and Halloween! Fall is my favorite season (isn't it obvious?) and this quote by George Eliot sums it up perfectly. 

Happy Fall Y'all! 

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Monday Motivation-September 16th

Happy Monday! 

Go out there and tackle the week, always remembering that nothing is impossible! :)

Off the Shelf: The Terror by Dan Simmons

Good Afternoon Readers, 

This book was intense! Part action/adventure, part horror, The Terror was a page-turner from start to finish. Based on an actual Arctic expedition to the Northwest Passage, Simmons provides us with a fictional account of the doomed Erebus and Terror, captained by Sir John Franklin and Sir Francis Crozier. Along the way, they face myriad dangers and challenges, including hungry polar bears, diminishing rations, scurvy, and a monstrous snow beast that stalks their every move. 

If you like historical fiction or alternate histories with horror elements (think Anno Dracula or Twelve), then you should check out this book! 

I've not watched the AMC mini-series based on this book, has anyone read it and thought it lived up the book? Leave comments in the section below! 

Thank Y'all for reading. Be sure to enter your e-mail address to get all the latest updates from Pines and Peaches. 

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means a small portion of the proceeds go to support Pines and Peaches, at no additional cost to you. Read my disclosure policy here. 

Monday Motivation- September 9th

Good Morning and Happy Monday!

I love this quote, it reminds me to focus on the bright side because even the darkest times have a silver (or starry) lining. Stay strong through this week, friends! 

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Off the Shelf: Fall; or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson

 

Good Afternoon and Happy Friday! 

Hope everyone is having a fabulous week so far. I haven't done an Off the Shelf post in a while, but after reading this book, I just had to share. Last year, I read The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland and I have been meaning to read more books by them because that book was amazing! 

While I was browsing the local library, I was thrilled to find a new Neal Stephenson book on the shelf. As much as I loved D.O.D.O., I think I was even more addicted to this book! It centers around Richard "Dodge" Forthrast, a wealthy video game producer who seeks immortality by technological means. Upon his death, his brain is scanned into the cloud, then later he is reanimated... 

This book is a roller coaster ride of sci-fi blended with fantasy, science blended with religion. At almost 900 pages, this book was no lightweight, but I sped my way through it in four days. I've never read anything like it! 

P.S. If you know of another book like it, please leave the name in the comment section, cause I definitely want to check it out! 

I have included the Amazon link so you can get your copy here. 

Thank Y'all for reading! Be sure to enter your email address to get all the latest updates from Pines and Peaches. 

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means a small portion of the proceeds go to support Pines and Peaches, at no additional cost to you. Read my disclosure policy here. 

Books to Watch: Coming Soon in September 2019

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means a small portion of the proceeds go to support Pines and Peaches, at no additional cost to you. Read my disclosure policy here. 

September is here! The kids are back in school, the leaves are starting to change colors, and best of all, the Halloween decorations are up at the stores! As we head into Fall, there are a ton of great books on deck. Here are ten books that I can't wait to read that are set to release this month: 

The Institute by Stephen King

Available on September 10th

In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy—who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, “like the roach motel,” Kalisha says. “You check in, but you don’t check out.”

In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.

As psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It, The Institute is Stephen King’s gut-wrenchingly dramatic story of good vs. evil in a world where the good guys don’t always win.

Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

Available on September 10th

How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true?

Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland---throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don't know. And because we don't know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. 

In his first book since his #1 bestseller, David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.

Capturing the Devil by Kerri Maniscalco

Available on September 10th

In the shocking finale to the bestselling series that began with Stalking Jack the Ripper, Audrey Rose and Thomas are on the hunt for the depraved, elusive killer known as the White City Devil. A deadly game of cat-and-mouse has them fighting to stay one step ahead of the brilliant serial killer---or see their fateful romance cut short by unspeakable tragedy.

Audrey Rose Wadsworth and Thomas Cresswell have landed in America, a bold, brash land unlike the genteel streets of London. But like London, the city of Chicago hides its dark secrets well. When the two attend the spectacular World's Fair, they find the once-in-a-lifetime event tainted with reports of missing people and unsolved murders.

Determined to help, Audrey Rose and Thomas begin their investigations, only to find themselves facing a serial killer unlike any they've encountered before. Identifying him is one thing, but capturing him---and getting dangerously lost in the infamous Murder Hotel he constructed as a terrifying torture device---is another.

Will Audrey Rose and Thomas see their last mystery to the end---together and in love---or will their fortunes finally run out when their most depraved adversary makes one final, devastating kill?

Strands of Truth by Colleen Coble

Available on September 10th

Harper Taylor is used to being alone— after all, she grew up in one foster home after another. Oliver Jackson finally took her under his wing when she was a runaway teenager, and now Harper pours her marine biology knowledge into Oliver’s pen shell research. But she’s never stopped wishing for a family of her own. 

So when a DNA test reveals a half-sister living just two hours away, Harper is both hopeful and nervous. Over warm cinnamon rolls, Harper and Annabelle find striking similarities in their stories. Is it just a coincidence that both their mothers died tragically, without revealing Harper and Annabelle’s father’s name? 

Oliver’s son Ridge still sees Harper as a troubled teen even all these years later. But when Oliver is attacked, Ridge and Harper find themselves working together to uncover dangerous secrets that threaten to destroy them all. They must unravel her past before they can have any hope for the future. 

Land of Wolves by Craig Johnson

Available on September 17th

Attempting to recover from his harrowing experiences in Mexico, in Land of Wolves Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire is neck deep in the investigation of what could or could not be the suicidal hanging of a shepherd. With unsettling connections to a Basque family with a reputation for removing the legs of Absaroka County sheriffs, matters become even more complicated with the appearance of an oversize wolf in the Big Horn Mountains to which Walt finds himself feeling more and more empathetic.

A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie

Available on September 17th

The chimneys of industry rise over Adua and the world seethes with new opportunities. But old scores run deep as ever.

On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield, and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help from the crown. But King Jezal's son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specializes in disappointments.Savine dan Glokta - socialite, investor, and daughter of the most feared man in the Union - plans to claw her way to the top of the slag-heap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control.The age of the machine dawns, but the age of magic refuses to die. With the help of the mad hillwoman Isern-i-Phail, Rikke struggles to control the blessing, or the curse, of the Long Eye. Glimpsing the future is one thing, but with the guiding hand of the First of the Magi still pulling the strings, changing it will be quite another...

Super Attractor by Gabrielle Bernstein

Available on September 24th

In Super Attractor, Gabrielle Bernstein lays out the essential methods for manifesting a life beyond your wildest dreams.

This book is a journey of remembering where your true power lies. You'll learn how to co-create the life you want. You'll accept that life can flow, that attracting is fun, and that you don't have to work so hard to get what you want. Most important, you'll feel good. And when you feel good, you'll give off a presence of joy that elevates everyone around you.

Super Attractor is a manifesto for confidently claiming your desires. In these pages, you'll learn how to:

   • Do less and attract more 
   • Relax and trust that what you desire is on the way 
   • Know that spiritual guidance is available to you at all times 
   • Feel a sense of awe each day as you witness miracles unfold 

Accepting that you are a Super Attractor will change everything. You'll trust that it's safe to release the past, and you'll no longer fear the future. You'll tap into an infinite source of abundance, energy, joy, and well-being. This well-being will become the norm for you, and you'll grow to embrace it as your birthright. Most importantly, you'll know intuitively how to show up for life and bring more light to the world around you.

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi

Available on September 24th

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known.

So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures.

This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children—the violent and capricious separation of families—and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.

The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman

Available on September 24th

In Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. She finds her way to a renowned rabbi, but it’s his daughter, Ettie, who offers hope of salvation when she creates a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Lea. Once Ava is brought to life, she and Lea and Ettie become eternally entwined, their paths fated to cross, their fortunes linked.

Lea and Ava travel from Paris, where Lea meets her soulmate, to a convent in western France known for its silver roses; from a school in a mountaintop village where three thousand Jews were saved. Meanwhile, Ettie is in hiding, waiting to become the fighter she’s destined to be.

What does it mean to lose your mother? How much can one person sacrifice for love? In a world where evil can be found at every turn, we meet remarkable characters that take us on a stunning journey of loss and resistance, the fantastical and the mortal, in a place where all roads lead past the Angel of Death and love is never ending.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Available on September 24

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.

The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are. Filled with suspense, you may read it quickly to find out what happens, but what happens to Danny and Maeve will stay with you for a very long time.

I hope with my eclectic taste in books I was able to offer some suggestions for everyone! :) Fall reading, here we come!!!

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