Friday Favorites (3.31.23.) & The Books I Read in March

 

Happy Friday, friends! I am linking up with Andrea and Erika for today's blog post. Before I get started with the books I read this month, I want to thank you for your kind comments regarding Monday's post when I shared about how my sister died. I really appreciate the love and prayers you lavished on our family. We all have felt every single one of them, and I am so thankful for you! 

So I know that this favorites post is normally not for books, but since books are my favorite things and it's the last day of the month, I thought I'd make this post all about that today. 

Friends, I have had a MUCH better reading month in March! I read five books, and loved them all. I will jump right in with my first book by a favorite author.

Pamela Kelley will always be one of my most beloved authors. Everything she writes is pure gold, and though these books are a commitment, with this being the eighth book in the series, it is so worth it to read them all! Have I convinced you yet? This book picks up with all the favorite characters in her other books, plus a few new ones. New friendships and relationships are brewing with the introduction of some characters that we get to meet in this book. Meanwhile, Lisa's food business is struggling because of competition, and her son Travis is also hurting in his business and facing challenges with his construction company. These books are like reconnecting with family you don't get to see as often as you'd like, so they're always very appealing to me, and Hallmark-ish, which you know is my favorite. 

Next up was this delightful read.

Oh my word, I loved this book! Nora is a screenwriter who turned her personal tragedy into a script that is turned into a movie. When America's favorite actor is cast as her villain, she knows almost instantly her life will never be the same. The morning after the shoot wraps up, Nora finds Leo on her porch with a bottle of tequila and a proposition: he will pay her a thousand dollars a day if she lets him stay for one week. The extra money would give her the breathing room she needs, but it's the need in his eyes that makes her say yes. Seven days—it's the blink of an eye or an eternity, depending on how you look at the situation. Enough time to fall in love, or enough time to break your heart. 

Next up was this book.

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice's life isn't terrible. She likes her job, even if it wasn't the one she expected to have. She's happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn't just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush. It's her dad, the vital, charming, 40 something version of him with whom she is reunited. Now armed with with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything she would change if she could? 

This next author never disappoints!

Jenny always knew she would fall in love, get married, and have a baby and in that order. Now, very pregnant and not quite married, she actually doesn't mind that she and her live-in fiancé accidentally started their family earlier than she'd planned. But Dean, whom Jenny loves enough to overlook all of his bad qualities, is acting distant. The night he runs out for cigarettes and doesn't come back, he is forever demoted from future husband to sperm donor. The next day, Jenny goes into labor. In the months that follow, she learns how to do everything on her own, and things finally start looking up. She gets to know a handsome neighbor who has a knack for being there at just the right time and who also happens to be a baby whisperer. But Dean is never far from Jenny's thoughts and now he's back in her life. Will she decide to go back to her old life that she always thought she wanted, or will she continue on in this new life that she's been lucky to find? 

Next up was a reread for me, because I started the second book in the series and needed to remember.

Sometimes it is the one who loves you who hurts you the most. Lilly hasn't always had it easy, but that's never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She's come a long way from the small town in Maine she is from, by moving to Boston and opening up her own business. So when she feels a spark with a neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, suddenly everything in her life seems almost too good to be true. Ryle is assertive, stubborn, and maybe a little arrogant. He's also sensitive, brilliant, and loves Lilly. As they start to date, questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, as do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan, her first love and a link to the past she left behind. As all of this starts to overlap, Lilly is forced to make some decisions that she doesn't want to make.

I'd love to hear which books you've read and loved this month! Are there any authors you think I'd like? I've read Wendy Wax, Louise Miller, Beth O'Leary, Josie Silver...all of those types of writers. I'd love to hear from you on this, so please share. The only other post I wrote this week was on Monday, and you can read about my beautiful sister here. As far as my sporadic blog posts go, and for my own mental wellbeing, I may back off from posting five days a week until the school year ends. I'm not completely sure about this, so check back daily just in case, but I have enjoyed some blog breaks recently. I can't keep up with everything in life, and this space makes sense to let go of a bit. I'll still post two or three times a week, for sure, but I wanted you to know. (I am all good here, I just know my own limitations.)

Just a reminder that on Wednesday, April 5th, I am hosting the Currently link party, where we'll be sharing what we're currently loving, hoping, playing, needing, and feeling. I hope you join us! Thanks for reading my blog, friends, Love to all!