SPOILER ALERT – if you haven’t read or listened to the book skip this post
Truly enjoyed this one. I love a good fantasy novel and this definitely qualifies. Loved the setting of Dragon riders and adventure. The Heroine is your unlikely lady who gets tossed into a destiny she didn’t plan on but takes to like a fish to water. There is a love triangle but not drug at as is typical in these fantasy novels. She figures out early on who she wants and wants real bad and who is just a friend. It’s a good lesson in sometimes what we think we want isn’t. I enjoyed the friendship built as well as the romance. Loved the twist at the end and sets up the next book well. Also, Andarna – how can you not love her? She’s the best. Their stories are also a nice parallel. I feel like her Mom will play a bigger role in the coming book – also I have a theory her father definitely didn’t die of natural causes.
My partner and I started the process of moving in together this weekend. Just a light trip to get the ball rolling. Man even bringing over a small load of clothes it took a lot of rearranging at his place! Luckily he’s pretty good with that and has a lot of room. I also unpacked a box I haven’t unpacked since I moved to SD. Found not only my important papers but an old poster I had up in my room since I was like 6. It’s a kitten in a tree that says ‘hang in there’ It was the second thing he hung up in his house hahahahah I love that man so much. He gets me. The first was my Master’s Degree. Nice to have it up again. It feels really good to combine our lives – even though it’s gonna be a lot of work and moving is a pain in the ass. Just fucking happy – in a real way. I don’t have to ask him for help or support he just offers and does it. In fact, he’s happy to do it because he as zero hesitation on combining our lives and zero hesitation on being with me. He doesn’t question if I am the one or the right path for his life – he knows I am without question. It’s freaking amazing! I of course feel that way for him too. It’s what I have been waiting for and this and he was SO worth the wait.
I think most of us can related to Penelope Featherington. I know I can. For all my extroverted traits, I was never the bell of the ball. I was never considered pretty or popular in my school years. Like Penelope – that didn’t bother me most of the time. Like Penelope – sometimes it bothered me a lot. Loving someone from afar who doesn’t love you back is pretty relatable too. What isn’t is that person suddenly falling in love with you like Colin did with Penelope. Don’t get me wrong – it’s the romantic fairy tale thing I wanted to happen for Penelope – it’s just not what happens in real life. In my experience the person who doesn’t notice you tends to continue not noticing you in that way. the great thing is – I don’t think Penelope was waiting around for him to come to his sense and notice her romantically. She was out there building a life and a bank account for herself. LOVE that – work it girl. Even when she got her dream scenario she knew she had to stand up for her previous life and what was hers. She also recognized that Colin wasn’t this perfect person she built up in her mind and loved him for who he actually was. I liked that too. Over all a pleasant listen and trip into Penelope and Colin’s world. Of all the characters in the series I think I relate best to Penelope in a lot of ways.
Hi everyone! I’m Rachel and I love to read books and give unsolicited book recommendations to my friends. Andrea recently read In Five Years by Rebecca Serle after I wrote a blurb about it on my Instagram, and I’m so glad she did! She’s asked me to write to all of you what I thought about the book and why I suggested others read it. Enjoy!
In Five Years is a charming book that follows Dannie, a goal-oriented New Yorker who has her life planned out to the minute. Her career as a successful lawyer, her recent engagement, and her entire future are planned out meticulously. Until they’re not. Dannie’s plans are shaken up when she has a vivid dream where she finds herself in a foreign apartment next to a strange man and a seemingly very different life than the one she left behind in the real world. Once she wakes, Dannie can’t help but ponder on this dream and the feeling of fate that seeped from it. The rest of the story follows Dannie as she navigates the next five years of her life with her fiance, free-spirited best friend Bella, and to her surprise, the strange man from her dream who has materialized in her real life.
I’ll be honest: this is not the typical kind of book that I reach for on the shelf. I found this book for a cheap price on Amazon while buying other books in my favored genres of mystery/thriller and bought it on a whim. It’s a pretty short book at around 250 pages so I figured I’d read it for a fun and light read before I moved on to my more heavy subject matter books. After reading the first few chapters of In Five Years I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t the cliche romance novel that I was expecting at all. In fact, I hesitate to even label this book a romance novel. It certainly has romantic elements and the author is tricky, as she writes the first few chapters to make the reader believe this story will revolve around romantic relationships. But I would put this book into the simple genre of: friendship. This is a story about the depths of friendship between Dannie and Bella. I don’t want to give anything else away because I want any future readers to have the pleasure of the surprise of this story, so I’ll leave it at that. This story explores how a friendship can survive the ups and downs of adulthood, can change even the most well thought out plans, and can have lasting impacts that can influence an entire life. It’s a beautiful story and a very sad one. I cried during this one, but they weren’t all tears of sadness. I hope that you enjoy this book as much as I did!
Set My Own P(e)ace 