2020 Year End Totals

I said that my tracking for 2019 "wasn't great." My tracking for 2020 just didn't happen at all. Most of the things I finished after July didn't even get photographed, let alone get their own blog posts. I'm going to try to do better next year, but I'm not making any promises. There are a lot of things that I hope go better in 2021 and project tracking is the least of them. 

I finished some projects that I'd started in previous years...

And stitched patterns designed for being well and stitching during the pandemic...

And stitched some things I wanted to start in 2020...

There are also a lot of projects I started but didn't finish, most of it in the first half of the year. 

For someone who usually knits when she'd stressed there was a surprising lack of knitting. I finished the Finding the Yellow Brick Road Socks in March.  They're the most ambitious pair of socks I've knit in a very long time. It's the first time I'd tried that style of cable and I think the sock heel was also something new. I also finished three other pairs of plain stockinette socks in fingering weight Toes in the Sand, a pink pair in Drops Fabel, and a pair in Lion Brand Sockease Toffee)  and two in worsted weight (one with clearance Hobby Lobby yarn and one with Dollar Tree acrylic) 

I knitted the Jette Shawl, a striped garter stitch shawl, in Woolike, a fingering weight acrylic. There are no pictures of the finished shawl, so lets go with a screen capture from the yarn review video I did. 

There have been stressful years before this one. I'm hoping that 2021 will be better, but I'm not expecting things to be magically better when the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve. 

{I've Been Reading} The Visitors

 

 Absence of Alice by Sherry Harris 

Sarah Winston is having a little trouble with her latest client, a woman with inflated ideas of what her possessions are actually worth. A rival garage sale organizer has been trying to steal her clients and it's driving Sarah nuts....until she gets the phone call. A kidnapper has taken Sarah's landlady, Stella, and is presenting Sarah with a series of tasks to earn Stella's release. She's forbidden to call the police or ask for help. 

I've read every book in this series in order as it came out and this one is definitely different. The circumstances throw Sarah off balance from the very beginning and, for the most part, keep her isolated from her usual support network. It's fast paced and had me worried about Sarah, and Stella, and whether Sara's actions in this book are going to have consequences that stretch into the future. 

 

 

Her Final Prayer by Kathryn Casey

I absolutely love this series! Born into a polygamous family in a small Utah town, Clara Jeffries is such a unique heroine. After the events of the first book, Clara has taken a job with the police department, something that not all of the locals are pleased about. When one of her mothers finds a murdered family, Clara is called to the scene and discovers one family member clinging to life in the kitchen an a young infant safe in an upstairs bedroom. Without cooperation from the locals or even her own family, finding answers to what happened is complicated. The mystery is suspenseful and complex and I can't wait for the chance to spend more time in Clara's world. 

    

The Visitors by Miranda Rijks

Everything in the renovated barn is as perfect as Hannah can make it. It's taken years to convert the old building into the perfect holiday rental and she can't wait to welcome guests into her tranquil little country retreat. Mike and Nadia are nothing like the guests she had imagined. They're loud, rude, and demanding. She fears what kind of damage they'll do to the interior of the barn. And when their week is up, they refuse to leave. 

I read this one almost straight through. The tension starts to build early on and Hannah isn't doing herself any favors as she attempts to solve problems without involving her husband. She's so determined to have her little side business go well and Mike and Nadia are such horrible, awful people. I was dreading how it might all turn out and loved it right up until the end, which fell flat. 

Disclosure -- This post contains affiliate links. The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. 

{I've Been Reading} Lots of Nonfiction

 

Underground A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet by Will Hunt

The cover copy promises sewers and caves and abandoned subway stations, which intrigued me, but I had no clue how absolutely fascinating the rest of this book was going to be. Did you know that there are miners in the present day that sacrifice llamas to statues for protection? Or that there was a photographer taking pictures of the catacombs and sewers under Paris in the 1860s? The author talks about lots of fascinating places and their history, but he also spends a lot of time exploring the relationship that people have with the dark spaces underground. I finished this book with a list of things I want to explore further, even through the author provided lots of information and photos. It's a great vicarious trip to places I'd never be able to visit in real life. 

 

Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin by Megan Rosenbloom

This one actually isn't as grim as the title implies. The author describes her work with the anthropodermic book project, which uses scientific testing to prove whether books supposedly bound in human skin are authentic. I don't know if I was more surprised by the number of confirmed examples or the fact that they look so much like any other old, leather bound book. The science and the reasons the authentic books were made in the first place intrigued me, but the short book also takes a lot of detours, including the author's plans for donating her own remains after her death. 

The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson 

Reading this one led me to the conclusion that I've probably read enough books about Lizzie Borden for one lifetime. Focusing heavily on the trial itself, the book doesn't provide much new information about the actual murders. I didn't know about the cow making noise outside the windows of the courthouse, or the outbuilding where reporters would retreat to finish their stories. There are a few interesting tidbits here and there, but it's a long dry read. 

Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with advance review copies. This post contains affiliate links. 

{I've Been Reading} The Other Couple

 

 Hidden Treasure by Jane K Cleland

Josie Prescott is an antiques expert with her own popular television show and when she discovers an old trunk in the Victorian she and her husband are preparing to restore, she follows all of the proper procedures to reunite it with its rightful owner. That trunk belongs to the former owner of her house, not to the two nieces who show up demanding that Josie hand the trunk and its valuable contents over to them. Maudie Wilson is an adorable old lady and when a body is found in her apartment and there's no trace of Maudie herself, I was seriously worried. I don't know how I've managed to miss the Josie Prescott Antique Mysteries before now, but I definitely want to pick up the earlier books and spent more time with these characters.  

  

The Other Couple  by Cathryn Grant 

Skye and Joe are sitting in an expensive Lake Tahoe restaurant, enjoying the view and their drinks and discreetly observing the other diners. They're looking for a husband and wife who will fall for their con. Maggie and Brad fit the bill perfectly and before the evening is over they've invited Skye and Joe to share their lakeside rental house. I was quickly hooked by the plot and enjoyed the way that chapters alternate between the four main characters, but it got very repetitive very quickly and the plot began to drag. Brad wants time alone with his wife to work on their marriage. Maggie is glad to have their new friends as a buffer. Skye and Joe are just in it for the free vacation and whatever they can steal....and then things go wrong.  I appreciated that each character had a distinct voice but the plot started to lose its grip on me about halfway through and there was a twist I just couldn't make myself accept. 

Only Truth by Julie Cameron 

Isabel Dryland was brutally assaulted as a teenager. She can't remember the details of that day, but it left her physically and emotionally damaged. Her life as an adult is good.  Her loving husband has found them a wonderful house and she's renovating one of the outbuildings into a new studio. Everything should be fine...but it isn't. This is a gritty, sometimes brutal domestic thriller that had be both wanting to keep turning pages and wanting to put the book down because it's all rushing fast towards something awful. 

Disclosure -- This post contains affiliate links. The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. 

 

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {December 2020}

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules:  Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned,  as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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{I've Been Reading} The Housewarming

 

 The Housewarming by S.E. Lynes

This domestic thriller opens with a moment of sheer panic. While her daughter was occupied in her stroller, Ava took a brief moment for herself. The strap was buckled, the door was locked, she'd easily hear if her little one needed her.... But that brief moment stretched just a bit too long and the door to the front of the house wasn't locked. Ava's panic and growing despair quickly pulled me into this one. It's not always clear whether she's in the moment when her child disappeared or looking back from a year later, but that's okay because Ava is a mess and sometimes seems not quite sure herself. She's barely holding herself together. I loved this one, but it's heartbreaking to find out what happened that morning. 

Gone Before by Sam Hepburn 

Fifteen years ago, a five year old girl was abducted and never recovered. Now, a young woman knocks nervously on a door holding a  battered yellow rain hat stitched with Maya's name. The joyous  reunion doesn't last for long and at one point the plot had twisted so much that  I started to feel like I'd picked up the wrong book midway through. Despite the sudden change in the tone and direction of the plot, this is an enjoyable domestic thriller. 

The Hiding Place by C. J. Tudor 

The protagonist of this book is a liar. To get himself hired at the high school he attended at a teen, he invents references and an explanation for the holes in his work history. There are similar holes in the story he's telling the reader and  the first half of the book drags on. It's not clear why Joe has returned to his old hometown until what started out as a thriller becomes a horror novel. That sudden switch in genre is jarring, especially since the horror elements of the plot are so similar to what was already done in a well known novel with two movie adaptations. 

Disclosure -- This post contains affiliate links. The publishers provided me with advance review  copies. 

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {November 2020}

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules:  Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned,  as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

{I've Been Reading} Dear Child

Dear Child by Romy Hausmann

A woman escapes a windowless cabin in the woods and is hit by a car as she tries to find help. When the ambulance arrives, the woman's daughter identifies her as Lena. Her basic appearance matches a woman who has been missing for fourteen years. Even the scar on her face matches, but when Lena's grieving parents see her at the hospital, they realize that this isn't their daughter.

The first few pages had me worried that this was just another version of Room. Stick with it, because it's not that at all. This is so much else going on here, but it takes a while for that to sink in. The story is told by the woman who escaped the cabin, and the daughter, and Lena's father. The details don't add up at first, but it's always clear which character's head the reader is in and whether it's in the past or the present and the more things start to click together and make sense, the more chilling the story gets. I absolutely loved this one and can't recommend it enough.

 

Before She Was Helen By Caroline Cooney

I remember loving Caroline B. Cooney's young adult books when they came out years ago, so I eagerly picked up this one. Only a few pages in, I found myself disliking the protagonist. It's not that she's old...it's that she reminds the reader over and over how incapable and ditzy she is and she immediately makes bad decisions that kick off the entire plot. How could someone who had protected herself so carefully for fifty years have such poor judgment?  At one point she muses that maybe she used to be smarter and more capable and is starting to slip. Maybe that's it. In the chapters that describe her past, I really found myself liking her younger self. The plot rambles all over the place, from the very interesting past to the bewildering present. I counted at least a dozen characters, most with chapters from their own viewpoint. They were easy enough to keep straight, but the sheer number of people involved in the plot kept it bouncing all over the place.

 

The Body From the Past by Judi Lynn 

The latest fixer-upper that Jazzie, her husband, and her cousin have purchased comes with a locked room that the former owner never bothered to force her way into. If there's anything I question about the plot it's how someone could live in a house with a sealed bedroom and no curiosity about what's inside. Jazzi, of course, is brimming with curiosity and a little wary of what might be lurking behind that door. The room turns out to be a dusty shrine to a teenager who died years earlier and her family wants nothing to do with any of the girls mementos or diaries. Jazzi can't bear to toss it all into the dumpster so she takes it home and begins reading, quickly discovering that the teenager's murder was never solved. I really enjoy this series and its cast of characters. They're fun to spend time with and the mystery was intriguing, but huge chunks of the book are spent on feeding the pets and showering the mundane details of everyday life. 

The Temp by Michelle Francis 

Carrie and her husband, Adrian, seem to have it all, successful careers in television production, awards, a great marriage. But when she finds out that she's pregnant, Carrie wants more. She wants a baby. What she quickly discovers that she doesn't want is Emma, the temp filling in her position while she's away from the office. While Carrie struggles to balance her newborn and her job, Emma is effortlessly stepping into Carrie's shoes and getting close to her boss and her husband. And it's becoming more and more obvious that Adrian isn't going to embrace his new role as a father. The tension that permeates their relationship since Rory's birth keep the two of them from comparing notes and realizing that Emma is too good to be true. I much prefer that to books where the characters just never bother to hand a conversation. The story moves slowly until the plot finally starts to twist and things quickly escalate and the ending is....well, it's an ending. I'm not sure it fit with the rest of the book or was remotely plausible. It definitely didn't go where I thought it was going.  

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {10/2/2020}

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules:  Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned,  as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

{I've Been Reading} The Nesting

The Nesting by C. J. Cooke

Lexi Ellis, a young woman with no place left to go and no one left to turn to, impulsively steals another young woman's resume and applies for a job as a nanny. She'll be living in an isolated house in Norway, taking care of a widower's two daughters while he builds a high concept house hanging from a steep cliff.  She knows that what she is doing is a bad idea, but she's immediately drawn to the two little girls who recently lost their mother. 

Overall, I enjoyed this book. Haunted houses always appeal to me and there are some chilling scenes with muddy animals prints in the house and  an apparition one of the girls describes as "the sad lady." It includes an intriguing mix of environmentalism and folklore, along with the fact that Lexi is trying to determine whether what she sees is supernatural or a hallucination brought on by her mental illness. She's a likable character who took the job out of desperation and is doing her best to be a good nanny to the children. I did have a hard time accepting the author's description of  the young children and the rigid academic schedule they're supposed  to be keeping, to the point that I had  to stop and look up whether 9 month olds can drink almond milk. (It's not recommended.)

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

{I've Been Reading} You Are Invited

One by One by Ruth Ware 

Eight employees of a hot new tech start up gather for a retreat in a luxurious ski chalet. There's tension in the group even before they become stranded on the mountainside and an avalanche partially buries the building -- then members of the team begin to die. This book was chilling, partially from the suspenseful plot and partially from the vivid descriptions of the snow and ice. I don't understand the appeal of Snoop, the app that they all work for, but I really enjoyed the mystery and the way the author conveyed information about the company through the housekeeper. I learned about the company and its employees along with her, instead of in huge chunks of backstory. The ending had me racing through to the end, anxious to know what would happen to the remaining characters. I haven't read many of Ruth Ware's books but I'll definitely be tracking them down as soon as I get the chance. 

 

You Are Invited by Sarah A. Denzil 

Five influencers have been chosen to travel to a Transylvanian monastery to participate in The Event, a highly publicized month long livestream. Before she even arrives at the building, Cath's driver tries to warn her away from the place. Terrible events have happened there in the past and as soon as the streaming starts, unsettling things begin to happen. Cath's medication goes missing. Viewers report seeing shadowy figures on the streams. One anonymous follower offers a million dollars to whichever participant is willing to murder one of his or her companions. 

I had high hopes for this one, but the plot is slow, mildly entertaining, and definitely not scary.

The Corpse Who Knew Too Much by Debra Sennefelder 

The latest food blogger mystery has Hope teaching a blogging class and exploring the world of podcasts, especially the true crime podcast created by one of her childhood friends. After building an audience, Devon has returned to her hometown to cover the unsolved disappearance of her own mother. Not long after she asks Hope for help, Devin is found murdered, all of her carefully compiled notes missing. I enjoy this series, which focuses almost as much on Hope's daily life as a food blogger as it does on the mystery in each book. 

Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with advance review copies. This post contains affiliate links. 

 

{I've Been Reading} The Remaking

 

  The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman 

No one can forget the Witch Girl of Pilot Creek. Years ago, Jessica was burned to death with her mother, then buried in the local cemetery under a thick layer of concrete, her grave  surrounded by an iron fence made of interlocking crosses. No one wanted that little girl getting out. and no one will stop telling her story. There was that awful movie from the seventies and the remake two decades later that went terribly wrong, then the podcaster who decided to revisit the site with the actress who starred in both movies...

I absolutely loved the first three-quarters of this book, but the ending fell flat and left me disappointed. The author has a wonderful way of vividly describing things and bringing them to life and he perfectly captures that love for old horror movies and the independent video stores that came long before Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. 

 

The Prized Girl by Amy K. Green

This book has the feel of those young adult "problem novels" from the 1970s, this time written for adults and with a much bleaker outcome. A young pageant queen's murdered body is found in the woods and her estranged half-sister won't accept the official explanation. Virginia's life is wreck, but Jenny was seemingly perfect. The book alternates between Virginia's investigation and Jenny's life in the days leading up to her death and it had me holding my breath and trying to figure out what was going to happen. I loved this one.

 Disclosures -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy of The Remaking. I got The Prized Girl from the library. This post contains affiliate links.