On My Radar: July 2017

I haven’t done one of these in awhile, butI’ve come across several books that look interesting so it’s time for another ‘On My Radar’ post. ‘On My Radar’ highlights books I’ve come across that seem especially interesting. These may be just released books or they may be older books I was not previously aware of, but either way, there is something about them that caught my eye. I haven’t decided if I will actually read these yet, but I do want to follow the reviews to see what others think. That’s why they are ON MY RADAR!

If you’ve read any of these, let me know what you think. Link me up to your review if you have one. And if you do a similar post, be sure to link it up below. Maybe I’ll find something else that should be on my radar!

Here are just a few of the many books that are currently ON MY RADAR...

Before The Rain Falls by Camille Di Maio

After serving seventy years in prison for the murder of her sister, Eula, Della Lee has finally returned home to the Texas town of Puerto Pesar. She’s free from confinement—and ready to tell her secrets before it’s too late.

She finds a willing audience in journalist Mick Anders, who is reeling after his suspension from a Boston newspaper and in town, reluctantly, to investigate a mysterious portrait of Eula that reportedly sheds tears. He crosses paths with Dr. Paloma Vega, who’s visiting Puerto Pesar with her own mission: to take care of her ailing grandmother and to rescue her rebellious younger sister before something terrible happens. Paloma and Mick have their reasons to be in the hot, parched border town whose name translates as “Port of Regret.” But they don’t anticipate how their lives will be changed forever.

Moving and engrossing, this dual story alternates between Della’s dark ordeals of the 1940s and Paloma and Mick’s present-day search for answers?about roots, family, love, and what is truly important in life.

Life’s Work: A Moral Argument For Choice by Willie Parker

In Lifes Work an outspoken Christian reproductive justice advocate and abortion provider one of the few doctors to provide such services to women in Mississippi and Alabama pulls from his personal and professional journeys as well as the scientific training he received as a doctor to reveal how he came to believe unequivocally that helping women in need without judgment is precisely the Christian thing to do Dr Willie Parker grew up in the Deep South lived in a Christian household and converted to an even more fundamentalist form of Christianity as a young man But upon reading an interpretation of the Good Samaritan in a sermon by Dr Martin Luther King Jr he realized that in order to be a true Christian he must show compassion for all women regardless of their needs In 2009 he stopped practicing obstetrics to focus entirely on providing safe abortions for the women who need help the mostoften women in poverty and women of colorand in the hot bed of the pro-choice debate the South He soon thereafter traded in his private practice and his penthouse apartment in Hawaii for the life of an itinerant abortion provider focusing most recently on women in the Deep South In Lifes Work Dr Willie Parker tells a deeply personal and thought-provoking narrative that illuminates the complex societal political religious and personal realities of abortion in the United States from the unique perspective of someone who performs them and defends the right to do so every day He also looks at how a new wave of anti-abortion activism aimed at making incremental changes in laws and regulations state by state are slowly chipping away at the rights of women to control their own lives In revealing his daily battle against mandatory waiting periods and bogus rules governing the width of hallways Dr Parker uncovers the growing number of strings attached to the right to choose and makes a powerful Christian case for championing reproductive rights

Code Girls by Liza Mundy

In the tradition of Hidden Figures and The Girls of Atomic City, Code Girls is the astonishing, untold story of the young American women who cracked key Axis codes, helping to secure Allied victory and revolutionizing the field of cryptanalysis.

Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history; now, through dazzling research and interviews with surviving code girls, bestselling author Liza Mundy brings to life this riveting and vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment.

Hello, Sunshine by Laura Dave

Sunshine Mackenzie has it all…until her secrets come to light.

Sunshine Mackenzie is living the dream—she’s a culinary star with millions of fans, a line of #1 bestselling cookbooks, and a devoted husband happy to support her every endeavor.

And then she gets hacked.

When Sunshine’s secrets are revealed, her fall from grace is catastrophic. She loses the husband, her show, the fans, and her apartment. She’s forced to return to the childhood home—and the estranged sister—she’s tried hard to forget. But what Sunshine does amid the ashes of her own destruction may well save her life.

In a world where celebrity is a careful construct, Hello, Sunshine is a compelling, funny, and evocative novel about what it means to live an authentic life in an inauthentic age.

The It Girls by Karen Harker

One sailed the Titanic and started a fashion empire . . .

The other overtook Hollywood and scandalized the world . . .

Together, they were unstoppable.

They rose from genteel poverty, two beautiful sisters, ambitious, witty, seductive. Elinor and Lucy Sutherland are at once each other’s fiercest supporters and most vicious critics.

Lucy transformed herself into Lucile, the daring fashion designer who revolutionized the industry with her flirtatious gowns and brazen self-promotion. And when she married Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon her life seemed to be a fairy tale. But success came at many costs—to her marriage and to her children . . . and then came the fateful night of April 14, 1912 and the scandal that followed.

Elinor’s novels titillate readers, and it’s even asked in polite drawing rooms if you would like to “sin with Elinor Glyn?” Her work pushes the boundaries of what’s acceptable; her foray into the glittering new world of Hollywood turns her into a world-wide phenomenon. But although she writes of passion, the true love she longs for eludes her.

But despite quarrels and misunderstandings, distance and destiny, there is no bond stronger than that of the two sisters—confidants, friends, rivals and the two “It Girls” of their day.

That’s it for now Check these out and let me know what you think. Are you planning to add these to your list? Which one do you think I should read first? And if you’ve got anything interesting on your radar, let me know!