Recent posts and a fun pic (regardless of the controversy surrounding today’s deceased birthday boy)…

March 2, 2021March 2, 2021 momlovesreading01Leave a comment

Today is Read Across America Day & World Teen Mental Wellness Day & yes, it’s Dr Seuss’s birthday. He would have been blowing out 117 candles today since he was born in 1904, but passed away in 1991.
I will let you take it upon yourselves to Google the controversy surrounding some of Seuss’s books & why cancel culture has thrown him to the proverbial lions in recent years.

Controversy aside, above is my husband, twin sons & me on Halloween several years ago in costumes I handmade (including my sons somewhat heavy “wigs”, that were actually winter hats & a bajillion strips of hand cut felt glued on with a hot glue gun, thus adding to the overall weight of the hats. But the boys sure loved those hats & the kept them in their play dress-up & costumes trunk.) I love this picture of the four of us! We haven’t done trick or treating for 2 years now & the boys miss it…but I. Do. Not. Ugh…always so cold & our town has the worst sidewalks ever.)

This past week I posted the above pic on Instagram featuring some of my favorite suspense/thriller arcs that I have received over the years, including my first arc ever & the one I am holding, ‘All is Not Forgotten‘ by Wendy Walker. Click HERE to go to that post & read more about some more of my bookish first’s since beginning my “bookstagram” journey. Speaking of journey (no, not the band), one of my favorite sayings since becoming a fan of ‘Schitt’s Creek’ is from Alexis Rose (Boop!) & I hand lettered & framed that saying for a friend as she is a huge fan as well. You can see that at the end of this post. 😉

On Wednesday & posted about an awesome new release, sci-fi/speculative fiction/apocalyptic debut novel by Claire Holroyde, ‘The Effort’. The post photo also included one of my favorite Rae Dunn mugs (yes, I collect them, but only certain ones) that fit well with the books theme that says ‘Chaos Coordinator’. It always gets the Instagram love when I post it because isn’t that what most of us mom’s really are? I know I am! Click HERE to go to that post.

On Thriller Thursday I posted a giveaway for an arc of one of the most anticipated thrillers of 2021 & what will surely be one of my favorite thrillers of the year, too, ‘Every Last Fear‘ by Alex Finlay. That giveaway ended on 3/1/21, but I am still working on verifying all of the entries & bonus entries, so I will most likely post the winners name sometime tomorrow, on 3/3. That giveaway also included a super cute mini Happy Planner that has a bookish theme & says “The world was hers for the reading!” (well, I guess if a male wins he can give it away or give a Sharpie makeover.) Click HERE to go to that post (keep in mind the comments will be closed now due to the giveaway, but you can give it a LIKE to show your support.)

On Friday I posted with the hashtag #foreverfriday since I am a book influencer for Forever publishing. I really liked my post pic that day because of the color scheme, which honestly, pastels (💕especially pink, gray, & white) is the majority of my pages aesthetic theme & pretty much the color scheme of my home & wardrobe, too. I’m fair haired & fair skinned so the lighter the colors the better. Dark colors make me look splotchy & ill.😆

Anyhow, the book featured is a super cute one & a nice reading palette cleanser since I have been inhaling thrillers lately on audio book. And come on…look at that adorable cover! ‘Dream a Little Dream’ by Melinda Curtis takes place in a small town & just like Journey says (yes, the band this time), I’m 🎶 “Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world…“🎶 (God, I LOVE that song & I will sing right along with it as loud as I can when it comes on the radio in my van, & I truly do not care who see’s me singing. Life’s too short to not sing along to your favorite songs when they come on!) You can click HERE to go to that Insta-post & give it some LIKE love!

Saturday’s Instagram post was about a book that is all kinds of cray-cray, but in a good way (way). That book is ‘The Electric Kingdom‘ by David Arnold. This is geared towards the YA crowd, but Penguin Random House Teen saw that, even though I am well past being a YA, I still love reading many books in that genre, & they sent the book my way…& I am so glad they did! I think we all enjoy some YA books from time to time. I mean, I AM raising two YA’s so I can totally justify my wanting to read books geared towards their age group, so, yeah…💁🏼‍♀️
I’ll be sharing this book with my older kids for sure so we can discuss it. To read more about it, click HERE to go to my Insta-post.

On Sunday, the March Book of the Month selections went live, & my post includes my monthly spiel about how great BOTM is (because it REALLY is!) & how you can use my link in my Instagram bio to join Book of the Month (US only) & get your first book at a huge discount. Click HERE to go to that post & read more about that.

I will save today’s post (which you can go see by clicking HERE) for my next blog post since this one is long enough. In the meantime, would you guys do me a solid & LIKE my Facebook page Mom_Loves_Reading? (link in blog side bar or click HERE) Facebook is the big sister to Instagram & you know how their whole algorithm nightmare goes where you can have hundreds of followers, but they only let your posts be seen by like FIVE of them? Arghhh. So annoying. So help a sister out, (please & thank you!) & go LIKE my page, some posts, etc & if you have a bookish Facebook page, drop me a comment & I will LIKE your page & do the same for you! (Quid pro Quo, bro…😉)

☀️I hope everyone’s weather has been better lately wherever you live. Last week was sunny nearly every day for my neck of the woods, & it felt amazing! This weeks forecast shows a lot of sun once again, but temps will still be in the 40s & 30s, with some 50s on horizon for next week. I’m still feeding the 9000 birds that are visiting our yard daily, along with 4 squirrels who have become regulars (which I have named Farley, Spade, Jim & Pam), the neighbors dog (who steals suet blocks I put out for the woodpeckers), the deer (who have been somewhat MIA lately) & last night a raccoon decided he was going to get in on the action nocturnally. It’s a proverbial zoo out back some days!🐿🦝🐦🦌

🌈Stay safe out there, friends, & I hope you all have a fantastic week!😊

Audiobooks · Book Reviews · Halloween · MurderinoMonday · Nonfiction · Paranormal · True Crime

If there’s something strange, in your neighborhood, who ya’ gonna call…AMY BRUNI! Then read her book!👻📖

January 4, 2021January 4, 2021 momlovesreading01Leave a comment

Today is #MurderinoMonday & this book, although not #TrueCrime, it’s kind of in the same genre since there are definitely some dead people, murders, & even a couple serial killers in it!
Thank you @grandcentralpub for my gift copy of ‘Life With the Afterlife: 13 Truths I Learned About Ghosts‘
by Amy Bruni!

👻Ok, I have to ask all of you this question: Do you believe in ghosts? Maybe some sort of paranormal phenomenon or such? I do. If you are a hard NO to that question, this book, along w/ Amy Bruni’s TV shows ‘Ghost Hunters’ & ‘Kindred Spirits’, may change your mind about that. (And as to why I believe in spirits and/or ghosts, see a couple of my encounters further down in this blog post.👻)

The ‘ghost’ in this pic is ME. It was a pic from our doorbell this past summer.

Paranormal investigator Amy Bruni shares stories from her years of experiences w/ ghosts, organized around thirteen truths that guide her approach to the supernatural.
Amy Bruni, one of the world’s leading paranormal investigators, has learned a lot about ghosts over her years of research & first-hand experience. Now, in ‘Life with the Afterlife’, she shares the insight she has gleaned & how it has shaped her unique approach to interacting w/ the spirits of the dead & those who encounter them.

From her earliest supernatural encounters as a child, through her yrs appearing on ‘Ghost Hunters’ & the creation of her company Strange Escapes, which offers paranormal excursions to some of America’s most notoriously haunted destinations, & into her current work on The Travel Channel’s ‘Kindred Spirits’, this book is full of astonishing & deeply moving stories of Amy’s efforts to better understand the dead but not yet departed. With Amy’s bright humor & fierce compassion for both those who are haunted & those who are haunting, ‘Life with the Afterlife‘ is an eye-opening look at what connects us as people, in life & beyond.

Copyright ‘The Sixth Sense’ (1999); & can you believe THAT is Donnie Wahlberg??

‘Life with the Afterlife‘ is downright fascinating, insightful, thought-provoking & will legit make you second guess every creak, squeak & bump in the night you may hear in your home or any strange chill you feel breeze past you. I have personally had some highly unexplainable occurrences happen in my life, & here is a quick story about one of them:

My husband & I built our home in 2005 on property that had been in his family for decades. No other home had ever stood on our acreage. I was also pregnant with my twins when our house was built. Several months after we were living in our home & the babies were born, there were times when I was home alone that I would smell cigarette smoke as clear as if someone were straight up smoking in my home. No one in my home smoked, & no one had recently visited our home that was a smoker.

I would also hear voices of little kids, like an elementary school class full of them, & this was when there was no TV on, & we do not have children or a school anywhere near our home. Yet, I could often hear little kids laughing & jibber-jabbering. Then one day I walked into my bedroom to find the dresser that held all of my babies clothes, diapers, pjs, etc had EVERY single drawer pulled all the way out. And no one was home but me & my babies, who did not talk or crawl or do anything much more than sit in their carriers, baby swings or lay in their cribs. It totally freaked me out.

Then one day while I was standing at the kitchen sink, a picture that had been high up on top of the cupboard came flying down at me from an angle. It didn’t just fall, or it would have been about 6 ft away from where I stood. It came down at an angle as if aiming for me purposely, & it hit me in the arm, scratching me pretty well. There were other strange things that had happened for several years after that, but the cigarette smoking ‘entity’ seems to have moved on, probably because I live in the noisiest house ever & whomever (whatever) was here was probably like ‘I’m outta here’, yet to this day, I still swear I hear music or small children’s voices when there is no one else here & it’s quiet or late at night when everyone is sleeping. So, Amy Bruni…have your people call my people if you want to come use your ghostbusting gadgets on my home & let me know who all I should be charging rent for squatting here. 😳🎶🤷🏼👻

The book is a quick read & the audio version is enhanced w/ recordings from Bruni & her crew’s paranormal investigations. Fittingly enough, the book was published on 10/27…the week of Halloween.

So, if there’s something strange, in your neighborhood, who ya gonna call…Amy Bruni! And read her book!👻

Click HERE to add ‘Life with the Afterlife’ to your Goodreads list.
Click HERE to visit my Instagram post about this book & give it some LIKE love!

About ME · Audiobooks · Giveaway · Halloween

Happy Halloween readers!!

October 31, 2020October 31, 2020 momlovesreading01Leave a comment

🎃Happy Halloween readers!🎃
(Please visit my Instagram post pictured above & give it a LIKE or SHARE! Click HERE.)

👻So what are you reading this weekend? A spooky mystery (Zoinks!), maybe a thrilling who-dunnit (Jeepers!), or listening to a suspense filled audiobook (Jinkies!)? (Yes, those are Scooby Doo words…😆 My kids were watching the movie where they go to Spooky Island.)

🧛🏻‍♂️I am currently finishing up listening to ‘Harrow Lake’ by Kat Ellis which is pretty creepy & perfect for Halloween vibes! I’m also just about done w/ ‘Home Before Dark’ as I’ve been savoring that a chapter or so at a time for the last few weeks. It doesn’t usually take me that long to read a book, but I have purposely drug this one out for the spooky, haunted house feels for today’s holiday. And it truly is just right for Halloween reading!

Click HERE to read more about this book & add it to your Goodreads lists.

🧟‍♀️Next up I’ll be starting a true crime book for Murderino Monday, ‘Last Call’, which I’ll be posting about very soon! And later today I have a post about another suspenseful mystery.

🧡Just a reminder, today is the last day to enter my orange book stack giveaway a few posts back. 1 winner, 6 books!
Click HERE to go to that giveaway on Instagram now. Don’t delay!

📙Drop me some comments with what you are currently reading or some suggestions on what we should be adding to our TBR lists. Have a fun weekend & stay safe out there whether you are Trick-or-Treating or maybe going to a (hopefully small) gathering!