Where Is Your Bookmark? (What I Was Reading Then and Now / Time Travel Connect 5 / BBHOP Fun]

A weekly meme where readers share the first sentence of the book they are reading and say what they think. Hosted by the amazing Gillion Dumas of Rose City Reader.

The air beneath Evelyn's paper mask is hot and damp, and even though a shaft of sunlight from the open barn door reveals sawdust swirling in the air, she pulls the mask up to her forehead and allows herself a breath of cool air. [opening of The Memory Collectors]

A weekly meme in which readers share a random sentence or two from page 56 or 56% of the book they are reading. Hosted by the wonderful Freda of Freda's Voice.

She breathes in calm. She's stronger than this object. She is calm, peaceful. She opens wider. A white-hot flash pierces her center like a lightning bolt, and with it a sickening jolt in her gut, and a vision. A pair of hands, knotty pale hands, dirt under the nails, chewed up cuticles, white knuckles clenched around the grip of a gun. The barrel's pointing down at a stack of old paint cans, and a voice echoes inside her brain. How do you like me now? 

The connection breaks. Ev bends over at the waist, fizzy, disoriented. [excerpt from 56% of The Memory Keepers] 

I currently am reading The Memory Collectors by Kim Neville and am hooked. I wasn't sure at first, but the more I read, the more invested in the characters and story I become. The opening line is from the prologue offering a glimpse into Evelyn's past. It's funny how the mention of a mask up front makes me immediately think of the pandemic, but, of course, that is not why Evelyn is wearing a mask here. I really like the opening, the picture it paints in my mind. I have not yet reached the second excerpt in the novel (I am only about 25% in at the writing of this post), but now I am dying to get there to find out more. 

Perfect for fans of The Scent Keeper and The Keeper of Lost Things, an atmospheric and enchanting debut novel about two women haunted by buried secrets but bound by a shared gift and the power the past holds over our lives.

Ev has a mysterious ability, one that she feels is more a curse than a gift. She can feel the emotions people leave behind on objects and believes that most of them need to be handled extremely carefully, and—if at all possible—destroyed. The harmless ones she sells at Vancouver’s Chinatown Night Market to scrape together a living, but even that fills her with trepidation. Meanwhile, in another part of town, Harriet hoards thousands of these treasures and is starting to make her neighbors sick as the overabundance of heightened emotions start seeping through her apartment walls.

When the two women meet, Harriet knows that Ev is the only person who can help her make something truly spectacular of her collection. A museum of memory that not only feels warm and inviting but can heal the emotional wounds many people unknowingly carry around. They only know of one other person like them, and they fear the dark effects these objects had on him. Together, they help each other to develop and control their gift, so that what happened to him never happens again. But unbeknownst to them, the same darkness is wrapping itself around another, dragging them down a path that already destroyed Ev’s family once, and threatens to annihilate what little she has left.

The Memory Collectors casts the everyday in a new light, speaking volumes to the hold that our past has over us—contained, at times, in seemingly innocuous objects—and uncovering a truth that both women have tried hard to bury with their pasts: not all magpies collect shiny things—sometimes they gather darkness. [Goodreads Summary]

Have you read The Memory Collectors? Does it sound like something you would like to read? What are you reading right now?

Originally a feature called Last Year I Was Reading created by Maria from ReadingMaria. 

I liked it enough to continue on my own, but have tweaked it

 to feature Five Years Ago I Was Reading. 

(I would have gone back ten, but I read so little in 2011)

Five years ago this week I finished reading Clea Simon's The Ninth Life, the first in a mystery series featuring a cat and his human, a street girl named Care, who go up against some very dangerous people as they investigate the murder of Care's mentor, a private detective. The novel is narrated by Blackie, the cat, who is trying to remember his own past. Less cozy and more noir, this mystery was entertaining and had several tense moments.

Have you read The Ninth Life? What were you reading five years ago? 

Connect Five Friday is a weekly meme where readers share a list of five books,

read or unread, or bookish things, that share a common theme. 

Hosted by the  Kathryn of of Book Date.

I am not a fan of the time change and yet here we go again (at least for some parts of the world). On Sunday at 2 a.m., I will be springing forward an hour in time (as opposed to falling back). I do enjoy the longer days, I admit. It will not feel like bedtime as soon as I get off work, which is a plus. The upcoming time change got me thinking about time, which inevitably led to time travel and time slip fiction. I thought I would share five such novels with you today, all with the word "time" in the titles. I have only read one of these (The Time Traveler's Wife) and the rest are on my TBR shelf waiting to be read. (Covers are linked to Goodreads.)

A Witch in Time by Constance Sayers

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

A Stitch in Time (Thorne Manor #1) by Kelley Armstrong

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald

Have you read any of these? Do you have a favorite time travel book you would recommend?

Every Friday Coffee Addicted Writer from Coffee Addicted Writer poses a question which participants respond on their own blogs within the week (Friday through Thursday). They then share their links at the main site and visit other participants blogs.

What percentage (roughly) of the books you read do you write blog post reviews for? (submitted by Elizabeth @ Complex Chaos)

It varies. I think last year it was about 50% give or take because I did not review most of the middle grade and children's books my daughter and I read together. Before I began blogging, I kept a reading journal where I jotted down my thoughts about the books I read. When I started my blog in 2006, my blog became sort of an extension of that. I write and post about every book I read just about, the exceptions being the rare health or work related book I read or the majority of the children's books I have read with my daughter over the years. I reviewed some, but not nearly all. If you count just the books I read for myself for leisure, however, it would be close to 100%, if not exactly that. 

What about you?

 I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Be sure and tell me what you are reading and are up to!

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