What is the BOTM challenge?

The Book of the Month (BOTM) Challenge is part of my yearly “Show Your Shelf Some Love” challenge where I read from the huge stack of books gathering dust on my shelves. Back in December when I was setting up my bullet journal I took an inventory of the books I bought but had not read. I was surpised to see that I had accumulated over 400 books. Now admittedely some of these were on my Kindle so I can see how I overlooked them. But as one of my resolutions was to curb my spending I figured that focusing my reading on the books I already owned was a good place to start.

When I set up this challenge I had 31 unread titles from my Book of the Month subscription. My goal for July was to read 9 of those and give them away. As usual though, I have no patience and impulse control so I jumped the gun and read two of these titles at the end of June:

• The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
• Force of Nature by Jane Harper

Book 3: The Guest List by Lucy Foley

What should have been the wedding of the century turns into an evening for revenge. Will Slater, TV personality and and his bride-to-be Jules are both very ambitious and relentless in going after their goals. So they seem like a perfect match. But someone does not want them to be married. Jules has received an anonymous letter at her private home and ominous “trinkets” have been left behind.

You would expect a destination wedding to be grand and indulgent. But Cormorant Island is not just remote it is completely isolated. The skies are gray and the seas are choppy. The setting becomes its own character and adds to the sense of foreboding.

The Guest List opens up with the lights going out on the wedding and although the actual murder does not take place until you are about 80% through with the book the reader is kept entranced as the different characters spill their past secrets and present insecurities. Everyone is jealous and bitter. Each chapter evidence of their long memories and short tempers. So by the end when our victim is cut down, there are a myriad number of motives and suspects. Yet I was still surprised by the ending. I totally did not see that one coming.

This is my first Lucy Foley book. I’ve now added The Hunting Party to my TBR.

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Next Up: The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson

A promise could betray you.

It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past.

Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. As she begins digging into the past, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. Just as Ruth is about to uncover a burning secret her family desperately wants to keep hidden, a traumatic incident strains the town’s already searing racial tensions, sending Ruth and Midnight on a collision course that could upend both their lives.

Powerful and revealing, The Kindest Lie captures the heartbreaking divide between Black and white communities and offers both an unflinching view of motherhood in contemporary America and the never-ending quest to achieve the American Dream.