Hi Constance, sorry I missed seeing your comment before, but Yay for joining in on the Books of Summer. I will have to check out your list. You’re right that my list has too many long ones! Yikes. I should have been aware of that. Right now I’m going too slowly on the list, figures. We all need to account for other summer activities.
I’m curious about Madam Secretary … and I will look for your review. I often love the historical novels and I don’t know about Perkins either. Happy reading.

I was persuaded by your list to join the 20 Books of Summer and included Long Island but was careful to include some short books too!

Hi Dorothy, Yeah Renkl’s latest book The Comfort of Crows came out in Oct. last year and this book Late Migrations was her first book which came out in 2019. I might eventually read the Crows one. I agree she has a good sensibility about her and she loves animals and nature. I pick up tidbits from her essays. Happy reading!

Hi Ti, I think you would like Welcome Home Stranger. The lead character is strong … maybe strong willed too. Oh the List … I need to go on it big time. Hope your week is going well.

Hi Cindy, thanks all is well. I read & reviewed these books – I gave them mostly 3.5 ratings. Moving on now. Hope your week is nice.

Hi Sam, yeah I knew you were a Jon Clinch fan and I’m really glad I read this one. He did a pretty amazing job getting into the shoes of Grant and I learned quite a bit about the man. It started a bit slowly for me while I got my bearings of the story and jumping narrative but then later I was hooked. I think you should get this novel. I think you’d like it. What a figure in history Grant was.
Perhaps I was a bit too strict on rating this novel and should just give it a full 4.0 stars on Goodreads. Most all of my ratings are either 3 or 4 so I try to figure a way that it will mean a bit more than that. So I mark all these incremental points which are probably silly. Rating books is tough at times; I usually go with a gut reaction & my thoughts. I dont think Goodreads is often fair to the authors who must have thick skins. I’m sure for all Clinch’s research & work he deserves at least a 4. Cheers. Have a great week.

I hadn’t especially noticed before, but you are really a strict grader when it comes to ratings. I like your quarter-point increments because that’s the only way to really differentiate a lot of books that fall somewhere between three and four star values. Not all three star books are of the same quality, obviously, and that really helps.