Then and Now #4 (8/9 - 8/15)

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

Another crazy week and this one was honestly a little exhausting. I had a work meeting on Monday afternoon which was great and very productive. Afterwards I dropped by family friends for a distanced dinner at home. I was surprisingly exhausted afterwards and am starting to realize that I really am out of social practice. Because while I had Tuesday to recover, Wednesday completely for a loop when I went to an all-day BHV training. (BHV is Dutch for Emergency Response). I was a bit of a tired mess on Thursday and talked myself into a bit of a frenzy about whether I had picked up COVID during the ER day, even though we had all masked and did our best to keep distance. A self-test put that to rest but still, by the time Friday came around I was TIRED. I wonder if I'm ever going to get over that anxious feeling of 'you still have so much to do, there are so many balls you're dropping', but at least I've gotten better at ignoring that voice over the years.

So I haven't gotten as much done as I wanted to this week but I have been able to get a few balls rolling for some important things so that is good. I am also really happy to have completed the Emergency Response training, even though I hope I'll never have to use any of those skills. I might go see The Green Knight again next week, but that all depends on how I feel.

Here's what I posted:

• Review: Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh
• Sir Gawain & the Green Knight - From Poem to Film: Mother, or Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
• Friday Friyay: Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
• Review: Cecily by Annie Garthwaite

Recommendations

I don't really have any very exciting recommendations today except for the two music ones below that I have been listening to loads!

The Sun Might Rise in the West - Jakob Ahlbom 

I just think this instrumental piece is stunning, the way it combines nature sounds and really does sound like a slowly rising sun. 

you're a princess dreaming in a palace garden - ultravclet

I have become a massive fan of these kinds of playlist videos. They make for great reading soundtracks and I love how much creativity and imagination goes into these by the creators. They're not just putting music together, they're trying to create a mood. And it is super effective! So many of the Comments sections for these kinds of videos are filled with pieces of writing inspired by the music. This one is beautifully dramatic while still allowing for nice calm moments.

In My Mailbox

The Girl Upstairs by Georgina Lees (12/9/2021; HarperCollins UK)

How well do you know your neighbour?Would you trust them with your life?

I heard Emily before I saw her. The harsh smack of heels against cheap wooden floorboards. The loud phone calls. The incessant music.

I knew Emily before I met her. Discarded receipts in our communal hallway. Sticky leftovers in the shared food waste bin. Wine shop vouchers in the letterbox.

Now she’s gone missing, and I’m the only one who can find her. The only one who can save her.

Because I know her best, and I heard everything.

As someone who can also hear their neighbours very clearly, this is horrifying to me. So of course I'm desperate to read it!

The Trapped Wife by Samantha Hayes (9/8/2021; Bookouture)

My family gathers around the large oak table in our beautifully renovated home. I’ve put on a dress and lit candles, and there’s a wonderful aroma coming from the dinner you’ve so lovingly prepared. I feel your hand squeeze mine as you top up my glass and ask about my day as a doctor in our small town. It’s the perfect domestic scene, except for one tiny fact: I think my husband is dead, and you are just another patient of mine…

I had no choice but to let you in. If I laugh at your jokes and run my fingers through your hair, maybe I can delete the photos on your phone and find the truth about the night I can’t remember, just before my husband left on the trip he never returned from. Perhaps my son and I will have a chance at a normal life again.

But as I carefully piece together the shards of what really happened that fateful night, only one thing can possibly be true: everyone is lying, even me…

Aah yes, an unreliable narrator! Do give it to me! Bookouture has honestly been putting out great thriller after great thriller over the past year or so, they've definitely become a go to for me.

Hourglass by Elizabeth Means (MonkeyTree Publishing; 6/1/2021)

What would you do if you knew exactly when you would die?

Like everyone else in the 24th century United States, ambitious young scientist Evergreen Mason knows the precise minute she will die. When she hears that a sixteen-year-old girl has surpassed her predicted lifespan, she is compelled to solve the existential riddle of what allowed her to be the only known survivor of her biological clock.

But Evergreen’s unrelenting search for answers is not without peril. The shocking truth could bring society to its knees, and those in power will stop at nothing to keep it secret.

Can Evergreen expose the government’s ghastly plot, or will the next clock that stops be her own?

I just loved the sound of the blurb, but I do also know I'd hate to know exactly when I would do! I also haven't read Dystopia in a while and considering the world and my own anxiety levels, maybe it would actually be cathartic.

The Hand of the Sun King by J.T. Greathouse (JABberwocky Literary Agency; 8/5/2021)

Wen Alder was born into two worlds.

On his father’s side, a legacy of proud loyalty and service to the god-like Sienese Emperor spanning generations. And it is expected that Alder, too, will follow this tradition by passing the Imperial exams, learning the accepted ways of magic and, if he serves with honor, enhancing his family's prominence by rising to take a most powerful position in Sien—the Hand of the Emperor.

But from his mother he has inherited defiance from the Empire, a history of wild gods and magic unlike anything the Imperial sorcerers could yet control. It began when his spirited, rebellious grandmother took Alder into the woods and introduced him to her ways—ways he has never been able to forget.

Now, on the verge of taking the steps that will forge the path of his life, Alder discovers that the conflict between the Empire and the resistance is only the beginning of a war that will engulf both heaven and earth, gods and man—and he may be the key to final victory for whichever side can claim him as their own…

I kept seeing this book around and it kept drawing me in, so I was super happy to see it come through on NetGalley last week!

So that's it for me! How has your week been?