We Live and Breathe Books: Sundays with Sam

Sundays with Sam is a combination of Sunday Post hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

My Week in Review

Happy Sunday! It's been a while. I was unable to get my posts drafted before my vacation, and I was too busy on vacation to write posts. But I'm back!

I went on vacation the first week of October. I more or less had visited most of these places as a kid, but it was nice to go back. It had been a long time. I forgot or blocked from my memory how horrible the traffic is getting out of north Jersey/the city. At least I was treated to a Cracker Barrel breakfast for all that stress trying to cross the George Washington Bridge. After that, we continued to Mystic Seaport. I love olde-timey places, and the seaport was lovely. We did a little boat ride with a guide who shared really interesting facts with us, and then we walked around downtown and ate.

The next day, we drove to Boston where we stayed for two nights. My daughter wears a tracker, and we did over 25,000 steps both days. We saw so many things, and the great part is most things are free. We did a duck tour and the Tea Party Museum. Both were great. I was worried about the hotel, because I was trying to keep the cost down, but it worked out. Even with the $45 a night to park, it was a good deal for Boston. We were able to easily walk to everything. We did take the train a few times. I was impressed with the stations and the train car. They skipped the little seat dip, and the seats were wider because of it. I approve.

Then we drove to Salem for two nights. We stayed in a hotel in Salem with a great location. It was very nice too. Lots of walking and lots to see all the decorations, shops, and historic sites, but my daughter planned some fun, out of the box activities for us too. We did a photo session at Witch Pix, and I hate taking pictures, but the photographer was wonderful and worked with me. His reaction of Sloth was precious too. He really understood us. Below are a few of the pictures from our session. We also had an aura reading. I don't usually do that kind of stuff, but it was wild. The woman asked NO questions. She did our separate aura readings and then one together, and her readings were dead on. It was a very interesting experience. We saw a LOT of stuff, but only toured the Witch House and the House of Seven Gables. I highly recommend Seven Gables. Again, our experience was enhanced by a great tour guide. Hawthorne was an interesting guy. I read The Scarlet Letter in high school, but I did not know much about him.

Our final stop was Sleepy Hollow for one night. Again, it's been a long time since I visited the Hudson Valley, and I forgot how beautiful it is. That day, we went to one of those halloween light pumpkin things. I had never done one before, and this one had some impressive displays. In the morning, we did two tours. The Twilight Village at Sleepy Hollow was a fun immersive experience. We did the day version which was a fun little Scooby-like mystery. Then we went over to Washington Irving's Sunnyside. This was a beautiful home, and each room had a person who knew a LOT about Irving and his home. Some fascinating stuff.

I always hate the end of vacation, but I was glad we had the weekend to recover. During my trip, I received an email related to the cut-over work being done on the train line. They canceled a LOT of trains and changed the schedule for five weeks, and so, my shuttle service also adjusts their schedule for the time changes. I didn't see my 6:30 am shuttle. I contacted the liaison, and she told me they were not doing that run. I was furious. It ruined my day in Salem, but then at 6 pm, we got an email that it was "reinstated". Crisis averted!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Woodstock Farm Sanctuary (@woodstocksanctuary)

Stacking the Shelves

I have even more books for this post, but I am saving them for next week.

I was THRILLED to see my three requests approved. I really adore Joyce, Wilder, and Segura's books. That was a nice surprise. I downloaded two auto-approvals. I really love the Score series, so I could not resist, and the Raskin book has some good buzz.

Irish Rockstar was my free Romance Reader book of the month. I had to grab the Walsh book when it went on sale as my library does not have it, and her books are delightful.

I got a ton of invites. I already had the Naymon and Pologe books. Let's Take It From the Top is on my TBR, so I will be downloading that one. Not sure about the others.

Netgalley/Edelweiss

Every Ordinary Thing by Jessica Joyce
Love Notes by Ava Wilder
Guilty Treasure by Jo Segura
Moonshine Kiss by Lucy Score and Claire Kingsley
Compulsively Yours by Allison Raskin

Purchased/Free

An Irish Rockstar for Christmas by J. Saman
Brighter Than Before by Courtney Walsh

Invites

Let's Take It From the Top by Julia Guilardi
Double Take by Tashie Bhuiyan
The Point of It All by Laura Kay
The Capybara Guide to Doing Nothing by Lorenza Bernardi , Lucia Carlini
In Every Future, It's Us by Katie Naymon
Now That We Don't Talk by Rachel Pologe
The Book Binder's Code by A.D. Bell
Solar Eclipse of the Heart by Kate Robb
Crash Into You by Simone Soltani
The Last Dragon Queen by Sylvia Mercedes
Witches of Questionable Intent by Jenn McKinlay
By the Light of the Stars by Emily Gray
God of Thieves by Katie Shepard

Read Last Week

I read some amazing books since my last post. I was happy to hit my 15 as I did not read that much on vacation. Three books earned five stars, and I was not that surprised.

First of all, it was so GOOD to have a new John Green book to read. It's been too long. Absolutely loved Hollywood Ending. Borison is a must read for me, and the new book in Ghosted series was even better than the first (in my opinion). I also gave the full-five to Emily Stone's latest release. I look forward to her stoking my emotions every year with her holiday books. Last year, she went easy on us, but it seems she found a happy medium this year. It was a sweet story with a grieving woman and her healing journey taking center stage. It hit all the right notes for me.

Find all my reviews on Goodreads

Books