Unraveled Wednesday – Week 31 of 2020

Hello readers and knitters! It’s Wednesday, which means I’m linking up with Kat at As Kat Knits to share what I’ve been focused on this week. I’ve been participating in this link up consistently for about a year and can’t describe how much it’s kept me on track with my reading and knitting goals. Please go to Kat’s blog and visit the other participants for some fabulous inspiration! Today I’m sharing three finished books and one big decision.

Read This Week:

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It was a fantastic week for good books, my friends. June was full of audiobooks, but over the last few weeks I’ve been able to return to reading on my own and have found myself lost in some amazing stories!

The Long Call is the first book in the newest series by Ann Cleeves. I listened to this on audio and it took me the entire two weeks of the loan to finish it. The mystery is excellent and the new detective, Matthew Venn, is very interesting, but the narrator was difficult for me. He sounded quite morose and clipped, which was probably purposeful given Matthew’s own personality. But when the next book is published I think I’d like to read a physical copy of it rather than listen on audio.

After finishing The Vanishing Half last month, I knew I needed to read Brit Bennett’s debut, The Mothers. I couldn’t put it down. I was immediately drawn into Nadia’s story – a 17 year old girl who’s mother committed suicide brutally and unexpectedly. Nadia is left with such tremendous grief and confusion, which haunts her life and decisions throughout this novel. Nadia is brilliant, beautiful, and on her way to law school, yet the trauma of losing her mother manifests within complicated relationships and making really bad decisions. I just wanted to reach out and hug Nadia the entire time I was reading!

The Snow Child was recommended to me by several of you earlier this year. I needed a retelling for my Bingo card and this was another book that I couldn’t put down! A couple in their 50s from Pennsylvania run away to homestead in Alaska in the late 1800s. They want nothing more than a child, but life hasn’t been kind to them in that way. One day, they build a snow child and soon it seems to come to life. They spot a young girl darting in and out of the trees, seemingly unbothered by the freezing weather. Of course, they want to give her a warm bed and a home, but she’s a creature much more comfortable in the wilds of Alaska – not tucked away into a domestic life. This was an amazing story that was beautifully told. I sort of wish I only read fairy tales for adults!

Knitting

I haven’t knit one solitary stitch in the last week. But I did finally make a decision on the contrasting color for my upcoming Spark Cardigan. I couldn’t find an inexpensive pink that I loved and started to lean toward a couple pinks dyed by Dream In Color. But then I realized how expensive they would be and decided that if I was going to spend that much money, then I wanted to spend it at On The Round, an indie dyer in Maine. So I put in my order for three hanks of Conch worsted! I think this is going to be perfect and create the effect I’ve been hoping for!

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How has your reading life been lately? How about your creative life? Do you find that your interests are fueled by the summer weather or do you end up hibernating a bit until the heat fades? I can’t wait to visit for more bloggers in Kat’s link up to find out!