Then and Now #8 (9/13 - 9/19)

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted @ Caffeinated Reviewer. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme. Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week.  It is hosted weekly over at Mailbox Monday and every Friday they do a round-up of some of their favourite, shared reads!  

Last Week

I can't believe we're nearing the end of September already, like where is the time going? I had a great "proper" start to my semester and WOW I had forgotten how exhausting it is to actually be physically present in class for up to 6 hours with 20 other people. It is a lot less taxing when it's online, because of the glorious mute button, but I do feel like I'm learning a lot more! There are also all kinds of exciting assignments coming my way, from vlogs (Lord help me) to blog posts (got that covered I think) and presentations (I'll grin and bear it). 

It's also been a busy week otherwise. I had a dentist visit and now my teeth are all shiny and clean again after I hadn't been since the start of COVID. I also got new glasses and OMG I can see things again! Whether it is the titles of the books on my shelves or actual leaves on trees, I can see! I also realise now how tired I usually got from constantly having to focus and stare, whereas now it's like a weight has been lifted off my eyes. We also had really fun drinks with our study society and we're planning all kind of fun events, both in person and online. 

What I posted this week:

• Review: From the Neck Up and Other Stories by Aliya Whiteley
• She is a favourite of mine and I loved this collection!
• Review: The Actual Star by Monica Byrne
• Another favourite author and The Actual Star is probably my favourite book of 2021, which says quite a lot!
• Review + Blog Tour: Curry Compendium by Richard Sayce
• Friday Friyay: Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

Recommendations

I've recently introduced one of my housemates to the joy that is the TV show Good Omens and now we're binging it together. It's honestly such fun and I'm always amazed that not more people have seen it or read the Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett book it is based on! If you like David Tennant and Michael Sheen and if you have a (mild) background in Christianity/the End Times, this is the show for you!

The End of the World is coming, which means a fussy Angel and a loose-living Demon who’ve become overly fond of life on Earth are forced to form an unlikely alliance to stop Armageddon. But they have lost the Antichrist, an 11-year-old boy unaware he’s meant to bring upon the end of days, forcing them to embark on an adventure to find him and save the world before it’s too late.

Mailbox Monday

My lovely housemates gifted me two books for my birthday as well, so those are featured here! The last two I got from NetGalley.

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Pan Macmillan; 2/6/2020)

Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must fend for themselves.

Three years later, a sinister figure arrives. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband's authority and terrified by it. In Vardø, and in Maren, Ursa sees something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place untouched by God, and flooded with a mighty evil.

As Maren and Ursa are drawn to one another in ways that surprise them both, the island begins to close in on them, with Absalom's iron rule threatening Vardø's very existence.

Inspired by the real events of the Vardø storm and the 1621 witch trials, The Mercies is a story of love, evil, and obsession, set at the edge of civilization.

I have been dying to read this one since 2020! Not only am I lowkey obsessed with Norway, but I also love the idea of an island without men which is suddenly host to a witch hunter!

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas (Custom House; 5/12/2020)

Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world’s best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years—summers included—completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises its graduates a future of sublime power and prestige, and that they can become anything or anyone they desire.

Among this year’s incoming class is Ines, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, pills, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline—only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. The school’s enigmatic director, Viktória, encourages the students to explore, to expand their minds, to find themselves and their place within the formidable black iron gates of Catherine.

For Ines, Catherine is the closest thing to a home she’s ever had, and her serious, timid roommate, Baby, soon becomes an unlikely friend. Yet the House’s strange protocols make this refuge, with its worn velvet and weathered leather, feel increasingly like a gilded prison. And when Baby’s obsessive desire for acceptance ends in tragedy, Ines begins to suspect that the school—in all its shabby splendor, hallowed history, advanced theories, and controlled decadence—might be hiding a dangerous agenda that is connected to a secretive, tightly knit group of students selected to study its most promising and mysterious curriculum.

Another obvious read for me, cause Dark Academia is the vibe I aspire to. I have quite high expectations of this book so fingers crossed it lives up to all of them!

Trust Me by Kelly Irvin (Thomas Nelson; 2/8/2022)

When her best friend is murdered the same way her brother was, who can she possibly trust?

A decade ago, Delaney Broward discovered her brother’s murdered body at the San Antonio art co-op he founded with friends. Her artist boyfriend, Hunter Nash, went to prison for the murder, despite his not-guilty plea.

This morning, Hunter walks out of prison a free man, having served his sentence.

This afternoon, Delaney finds her best friend dead, murdered in the same fashion as her brother.

Stay out of it or you’re next, the killer warns.

Hunter never stopped loving Delaney, though he can’t blame her for not forgiving her. He knows he’ll get his life back one day at a time, one step at a time. But he’s blindsided to realize he’s a murder suspect. Again.

When Hunter shows up on her doorstep asking her to help him find the real killer, Delaney’s head says to run away, yet her heart tells her there’s more to his story than what came out in the trial. An uneasy truce leads to their probe into a dark past that shatters Delaney’s image of her brother. She can’t stop and neither can Hunter—which lands them both in the crosshairs of a murderer growing more desperate by the hour.

In this gripping romantic suspense, Kelly Irvin plumbs the complexity of broken trust in the people we love—and in God—and whether either can be mended.

We all know I love a thriller, but this one is also listed under 'Christian Fiction' which is not something I usually read. I wonder how the combination will turn out. 

When I'm Gone, Look for Me in the East by Quan Barry (Knopf Doubleday; 2/22/2022)

Tasked with finding the reincarnation of a great lama somewhere in the vast Mongolian landscape, the young monk Chuluun seeks the help of his identical twin, Mun, who as a child was recognized as a reincarnated being but has since renounced the monastic life they once shared.
 
Proving once again that she is a writer of immense range and imagination, Quan Barry carries us across a terrain as unforgiving as it is beautiful and culturally varied, from the western Altai mountains to the eerie starkness of the Gobi Desert to the ancient capital of Chinggis Khan. As their country stretches before them, questions of faith—along with more earthly matters of love, sex, and brotherhood—haunt the twins, who can hear each other’s thoughts.
 
Are our lives our own, or do we belong to something larger? When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East is a stunningly far-flung examination of our individual struggle to retain our convictions and discover meaning in a fast-changing world, as well as a paean to Buddhist acceptance of what simply is.

Love how synchronized the publication date is! Aside from that I am super intrigued by the premise of this book and all the themes it is looking to incorporate.

So that's me! What's new for you, book and life-wise?