Ash Reads Stuff

The First Rule of Swimming  by Courtney Angela Brkic Publication Date: May 28, 2013 Pages:  336 (kindle)  Genre: Adult Contemporary  My Goodreads Rating:  3 Stars Goodreads Synopsis: A woman must leave her island home to search for her missing sister-and confront the haunted history of her family. Magdalena does not panic when she learns that her younger sister has disappeared. A free-spirit, Jadranka has always been prone to mysterious absences. But when weeks pass with no word, Magdalena leaves the isolated Croatian island where their family has always lived and sets off to New York to find her sister. Her search begins to unspool the dark history of their family, reaching back three generations to a country torn by war. A haunting and sure-footed debut by an award-winning writer, The First Rule of Swimming explores the legacy of betrayal and loss in a place where beauty is fused inextricably with hardship, and where individuals are forced to make...

The Delphi Effect  by Rysa Walker Publication Date:  October 11, 2016 Pages:  379 (kindle)  Genre: Young Adult Fantasy My Goodreads Rating:  4 Stars Goodreads Synopsis: It’s never wise to talk to strangers…and that goes double when they’re dead. Unfortunately, seventeen-year-old Anna Morgan has no choice. Resting on a park bench, touching the turnstile at the Metro station—she never knows where she’ll encounter a ghost. These mental hitchhikers are the reason Anna has been tossed from one foster home and psychiatric institution to the next for most of her life. When a chance touch leads her to pick up the insistent spirit of a girl who was brutally murdered, Anna is pulled headlong into a deadly conspiracy that extends to the highest levels of government. Facing the forces behind her new hitcher’s death will challenge the barriers, both good and bad, that Anna has erected over the years and shed light on her power’s origins. And when the covert org...

Like the rest of the world I got sucked into this story a few years ago and, well, things haven't really been the same since. I remember is fairly clearly: I had gone to see a movie with a friend and we saw the first trailer for the Twilight and she mentioned, "Hey, that's the guy that played Cedric Diggory! You should check these books out!".  I kind of brushed it off for a while until my family and I were getting ready to go on a road trip. I stopped by my local Books-a-Million and picked up the first three, distraught that the fourth wasn't out yet. I had told myself that I was going to wait to read them until my trip, otherwise I didn't know what I was going to take with me. At this point in my life I wasn't as voracious a read as I was now and my personally library was small.  Well. I didn't wait. In fact, I read the first book in less than a day and could hardly wait to get my greedy hands on the next ones. Like most people I devoure...

I Am Livia  by Phyllis T. Smith Publication Date: May 1, 2014 Pages:  391 (kindle)  Genre: Historical Fiction  My Goodreads Rating:  4 Stars Goodreads Synopsis: Her life would be marked by scandal and suspicion, worship and adoration… At the tender age of fourteen, Livia Drusilla overhears her father and fellow aristocrats plotting the assassination of Julius Caesar. Proving herself an astute confidante, she becomes her father’s chief political asset—and reluctantly enters into an advantageous marriage to a prominent military officer. Her mother tells her, “It is possible for a woman to influence public affairs,” reminding Livia that—while she possesses a keen sense for the machinations of the Roman senate—she must also remain patient and practical. But patience and practicality disappear from Livia’s mind when she meets Caesar’s heir, Octavianus. At only eighteen, he displays both power and modesty. A young wife by that point, Livia finds herself dr...

The Song of David  by Amy Harmon Publication Date:  June 13, 2015 Pages:  260 (kindle)  Genre:  Fiction/Romance My Goodreads Rating:  4 Stars Goodreads Synopsis: She said I was like a song. Her favorite song. A song isn’t something you can see. It’s something you feel, something you move to, something that disappears after the last note is played. I won my first fight when I was eleven years old, and I’ve been throwing punches ever since. Fighting is the purest, truest, most elemental thing there is. Some people describe heaven as a sea of unending white. Where choirs sing and loved ones await. But for me, heaven was something else. It sounded like the bell at the beginning of a round, it tasted like adrenaline, it burned like sweat in my eyes and fire in my belly. It looked like the blur of screaming crowds and an opponent who wanted my blood. For me, heaven was the octagon. Until I met Millie, and heaven became something different. I became ...

The Law of Moses  by Amy Harmon Publication Date:  November 27, 2014 Pages:  333 (kindle)  Genre:  Fiction/Romance My Goodreads Rating:  5 Stars Goodreads Synopsis:  If I tell you right up front, right in the beginning that I lost him, it will be easier for you to bear. You will know it’s coming, and it will hurt. But you’ll be able to prepare. Someone found him in a laundry basket at the Quick Wash, wrapped in a towel, a few hours old and close to death. They called him Baby Moses when they shared his story on the ten o’clock news – the little baby left in a basket at a dingy Laundromat, born to a crack addict and expected to have all sorts of problems. I imagined the crack baby, Moses, having a giant crack that ran down his body, like he’d been broken at birth. I knew that wasn’t what the term meant, but the image stuck in my mind. Maybe the fact that he was broken drew me to him from the start. It all happened before I was born, and ...

Wow! I can't even believe that it's August already. July completely flew by and I found myself on two trips with little to no actually time with a computer. I'm kind of bummed that I wasn't able to get some reviews written, so this will have to do. Four Star Reads:     Three Star Reads: So there are a few of my top reads for July. I tried to pick quick and easy books during my road trip but I also read the illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone  and reread Twilight after I visited Forks. Both of those are some of my favorites, so it was fun to go back. If we're friends on Goodreads you'll be able to see the two and one star reads, but those aren't any fun. Trust me.  Happy reading!