Thursday, August 11, 2016

Olympic Book Tag!



Hello everyone and welcome to The Olympic Book Tag. This tag was created by It Starts at Midnight and the Olympic graphics are a free download from Smashing Magazine.

As you probably know, the 2016 Summer Olympics are underway in Rio, so what better time to do an Olympic themed tag? This is also a great way to show your pride and cheer on the athletes who are representing your country. So lets jump on in! Oh and...

Go Team Canada! 




A book you loved from the first page.



Favourite road trip book. 



A book with a good love triangle. 



A book you really didn't "get". 



A book set in the summer. 


A book with a lot of fighting/bloodshed. 



A book with a lot of plot twists.



A book that made you sob. 



A slow paced book.



A childhood favourite.



A book featuring animals. 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1) by JK Rowling
Or any book in the Harry Potter series for that matter. 


A book you struggled to finish.

The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
(Because it stressed me out so much.)


A book with a great friendship. 



Books that actually feature Olympic sports.






I would like to tag anyone who would like to do this tag. Feel free to use my graphics if you like or follow the links I left above to download and create your own. Also be sure to check out the original post from the tags creator and leave me your links if you decide to participate. 

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Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Top 10 Tuesday: Top 10 Books I Wish I Read as a Kid

Top 10 Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. 

So it has been a couple of weeks since I last participated in Top 10 Tuesday. I was happy to see that this weeks topic is a freebie. So I was looking through the list of previous topics and came across one I hadn't done before. Here it is...

Top 10 Books I Wish I Read as a Kid


Children's books I didn't read as a child, but have as an adult:











Books I wish I read as a child, but didn't and is still on my TBR:
















Did you read any of these book as a child? Are there any you didn't read, but wish you had? Leave me a comment below. 


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Sunday, August 7, 2016

Sunday Wrap-up: August 7, 2016




Hello everyone,

I hope you all have had a great week. Well the Rio summer Olympics kicked off on friday. I didn't watch the opening ceremonies, but I did manage to watch a bit of swimming last night. Hopefully I will be able to tune into some more events throughout the week. Being Canadian I am obviously rooting for my home team, although I admit I do follow winter sports more than summer.




There is a new team competing in this years summer games that I can't help but root on as well. It is the Refugee Olympic Team. It is made up of athletes that have been displaced by their own countries. Check out this article about the team on Buzz Feed:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/laurasilver/everybodys-rooting-for-the-refugee-olympic-team?bffbmain&ref=bffbmain&utm_term=.fnmPYRWmQ#.rrmr3vxV5

Source: Franck Fife / AFP / Getty Images
How amazing is that? I'm only surprised that this is the first year for a Refugee Olympic Team. Wishing them all the best in their respective sports.

Here is my Instagram picture for the week:

A photo posted by Melissa Lee (@melissaleesmanyreads) on
This is what I was able to pick from the garden this week. As you can see the tomatoes aren't red yet but I currently have them wrapped in newspaper so hopefully they will ripen soon. Also I think I may have picked the cucumbers a bit too soon.. Yeah I really don't know the first thing about gardening, ha.

My Reading Progress:

I enjoyed and finished reading this Amish fiction:


I'm starting to make some progress with this book and hope to finish it within the next couple of days.

I had this on my TBR for June, but didn't get to it due to computer problems. I have this book in Kindle format for Kindle for PC. I'm happy to finally be getting to it. So far I'm really enjoying it. 

Recent Posts


Upcoming Posts:

Tuesday: Top 10 Tuesday: Top 10 Books I Wish I Read as a Kid
Thursday: Olympic Book Tag



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Wednesday, August 3, 2016

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton



The Distant Hours
By: Kate Morton


Published: July, 2011
Published By: Washington Square Press
Format Read: Trade Paperback
Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Date Read: July 26, 2016
Rating: 3/5





Edie Burchill knew very little about her mother’s past until a letter that had been lost in the mail decade before, was finally delivered. She learns that as a girl, her mother Meredith was evacuated from London, when World War II was declared. She was taken in by three sisters living in a castle that had been in their family for generations. Mystery surrounded their father and the book that made him famous. What were the origins for the Mud Man story? Edie’s curiosity gets to the best of her and she begins an investigation of her own, despite her mother’s refusal to talk about the past.


The Distant Hours has been one of my anticipated reads for some time now. I had previously read and loved Kate Morton’s The Forgotten Garden and The Secret Keeper. So naturally I had very high hopes for this novel.

Dual time period stories are among my favourites to read. I was pleased to discover that this one covered several decades. The plot switched back and forth between 1992 and World War II. It also told about the secluded childhood the three sisters endured.

Kate Morton’s knack for writing beautiful descriptions made for a story that was very richly detailed.
Unfortunately The Distant Hours was a bit too detailed for my liking and I found that the plot moved along at a snail pace. While I liked the mystery and uncovering the truth behind all the secrets, I just wasn’t captivated like I hoped I’d be. In fact I couldn’t seem to motivate myself to read this book and so it took me quite a while to finish.

I would definitely recommend Kate Morton as an author, however The Distant Hours isn’t one of my favourite books by her. 
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Monday, August 1, 2016

Monthly Wrap-up: July 2016



Well am I ever glad to see the month of July end. For me this past month was stressful and way too hot. Thankfully things are starting to look up and I am optimistic for the weeks to come. I don't really have anything to report other than that, so lets move on to my reading progress.

My Reading Progress:

Unfortunately my reading progress slowed down even more during the month of July. However according to Goodreads I am 11 books ahead of schedule. I have set a goal for myself to read 50 books this year and I am already at 40. 

Books Read By Month:
January: 8
February: 5
March: 6
April: 4
May: 8
June: 5
July: 4


  1. The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3) by Rick Riordan 
    Rating: 3.5/5
    My Review
  2. Blaming the Wind by Alessandra Harris
    Rating: 4/5
    My Review
  3. The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan 
    Rating: 4/5
    My Review: Date TBD
  4. The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
    Rating: 3/5
    My Review: Date TBD

The Stats

Favourite Book of the Month and Favourite Cover of the Month:

Favourite Setting: Rural Scotland (The Bookshop on the Corner)
Favourite Character: Nina (The Bookshop on the Corner)
Total Books Read: 4
Total Number of Fiction: 4
Total Number of Non-fiction: 0
Total Books Sent for Review: 2
Total Books Read from My Shelves: 1
Total Library Books Read: 1

Formats Read:

Physical Books: 1
eBooks: 2
Audio Books: 1



I hope you all had a wonderful July and wishing you happy reading in August! 

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