Summer Reading | Book Chatter

flowers Good morning. This week is chugging along nicely. I took Monday off which was very nice. I took a little stroll around some of my old teen haunts, hit a bookstore, had a nice lunch which included a super greens salad with sunflower seeds. I love seeds on a salad. The flowers at left were seen on my walkabout. It’s been hot and a little humid but not totally unpleasant. These flowers seemed to love it.

The pup and I took a little break from walking. Shorter walks since it was so hot but with the recent cloud cover we ramped back up again. She is the happiest little pup when she gets a long walk in. I do better with some activity under my belt as well. I never thought those words would come out of my mouth but these days it’s true.

The last 10% of Shoulder Season is taking me a little bit of time to get through. I hope to have the review up this Friday so there’s my motivation. It’s interesting and good but not riveting and there are so many books catching my eye.

My house is in a bit of a shambles. The boy is packing here and there for his departure to Kansas on Thursday but he’s taking some of my daughter’s things for her college move-in and that stuff is all over the place and not fully decided on yet. I like to have things in order so I am a little discombobulated at the moment. For example, there is a cast iron skillet on top of my dryer and it’s been there for a week.

Is the summer panning out to be the summer you expected? Besides the heat, it doesn’t really feel like summer to me.

Falling
By T.J. Newman
Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 9781982177881, July 6, 2021, 304pp.

The Short of It:

Lots of hype over this book!! Turned down 41 times before getting published, I can happily tell you that it’s the page turner you want right now.

The Rest of It:

There are 143 passengers on board headed to New York. What they don’t know is that their pilot’s family has been kidnapped and unless he brings the plane down according to the orders he’s been given, his wife and two children will be killed.

Captain Bill Hoffman decides right then and there, that they will NOT kill his family and he will NOT crash the plane. Although he’s told not to alert his crew, he doesn’t see how it can be avoided. He owes it to the passengers to have every chance at survival that they can have.

What a ride.

What you will notice right away is that there is an air of authenticity to the story and that’s probably because T.J. Newman spent years as a flight attendant. The attention to detail puts the reader right on the plane with those passengers. You are in the galley, in the jump seat, scrambling through the cabin trying to save lives. It’s riveting.

Some of the story may not seem plausible but at the same time, given limited means, it’s what the average person would do in that same situation. The last quarter of the book gave me high blood pressure and I could not put it down.

This is what you want in a thriller. Characters you care about, a fast pace, a seemingly impossible situation. It’s good. Throw this in your beach bag and you won’t leave the beach until you’ve turned the last page.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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