Summer Reading Wrap Up with MIRA Books!

*DISCLOSURE* Thank you to MIRA for providing product samples in order to facilitate this post.  All thoughts are strictly my own. 

Today, I'm sharing two of the books that I've read this summer for leisure reading.  As you may know, we are homeschoolers and reading is something we do ALL. THE. TIME.  With all the reading I do for school, I am actually able to carve out a little time each day to read grown-up fiction for my own enjoyment 😊  It is important to teach by example after all!  These two books from MIRA really stuck with me after finishing them this summer.

ROSIE COLORED GLASSES 

by Brianna Wolfson

MIRA Trade Paperback Reprint; June 11, 2019; $16.99

An IndieNext selection!

As a nation, we’re still in the midst of our tragedy, an era when opioid addiction is one of the greatest public health threats in the United States. ROSIE COLORED GLASSES is a barb and a balm for this time, a story full of painful truths, empathy, grief, unexpected redemption, and above all love.

In the divorce, eleven-year-old Willow knows where her loyalties lie: her mother, Rosie. Rosie is skipped school, tree house slumber parties, and ice cream dinners. Rex, her father, is lists and rules and lips pressed into a tight, thin line. Then Rosie stops joining Willow and her brother’s dance parties before bed, and often she’s asleep before they can even say goodnight. Things get stranger, and Willow almost can’t admit to herself how comforting Rex’s sternness is starting to become. As the family’s crisis deepens, the gap between what Willow knows and what her parents hide from her—for her protection, in her father’s case; shame and denial in her mother’s—creates a heartbreaking tension.

This story is hard to read, but should be read.  It is tragically heartbreaking and sweetly heartwarming at the same time.  The issues are extremely relevant and the characters and their struggles are so very relatable.  A truly, amazingly heart wrenching tale of addiction, the different ways we show love, and the ability to overcome loss, told from the perspective of characters that seem so real, they could be your own family.  Pardon me while I find my box of tissues.

HARRY’S TREES 

by Jon Cohen

MIRA Trade Paperback Reprint; June 25, 2019; $16.99

An Amazon Best Book of the Month!

 A much needed remedy for these fraught times, HARRY’S TREES a feel-good novel about friendship, love, healing and the unexpected magical connections that bind us together. A perfect pick for fans of Ruth Hogan's The Keeper of Lost Things.

 Thirty-eight year old Harry Crane, devastated by the death of his beloved wife, retreats to the remote forest tract in northeastern Pennsylvania that inspired him to be a USDA Forest Service officer—a job he once loved, before everything became a parking lot—to end it all.  There, he finds he’s entered a kingdom taken over by eleven-year-old Oriana, who just lost her father, and is under the strange spell of a book given to her by the town’s octogenarian librarian.  Convinced Harry’s appearance in her clearing is no accident, Oriana sweeps him up in her fanciful vision of what might be possible, convincing him that the forest might be a place of beginnings again.

This is the book I needed to recover from ROSIE COLORED GLASSES.  It is a beautifully written tale about the power of the human spirit.  It teaches us how to recover from tragic, heartbreaking loss by letting a little magic be the healing balm for your broken heart and soul. How to find joy in the joyless days after the loss of a loved one.  Absolutely gorgeous imagery makes you feel like you are right up in the trees with the quirky characters of this tale.  Love, love, loved it!

If you are looking for some really awesome reads that will give you all the feels, check out ROSIE COLORED GLASSSES and HARRY'S TREES.  They certainly don't disappoint!

Disclosure: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.